In thinking about what I really want from Destiny 2 in terms of content updates. I was reminded of the very first vidocs hinting at a "book style" telling of the story. Obviously that got ditched, but what if they brought it back. Giving players a new chapter every month. I'm no game dev, and I don't understand everything, but based on what Destiny 1, and what I want from a future title, I put this Destiny 2 roadmap together.

What do you want? Should Bungie dedicate more resources to help the live team? Does Destiny even need more frequent updates? Or should they go with a more Halo style game?

What do you want? Should Bungie dedicate more resources to help the live team? Does Destiny even need more frequent updates? Or should they go with a more Halo style game?

A large monolithic release with as much content integrated together as possible, followed by paid updates of the same nature. Frequent small releases simply do not hit critical mass.

What do you want? Should Bungie dedicate more resources to help the live team? Does Destiny even need more frequent updates? Or should they go with a more Halo style game?

A large monolithic release with as much content integrated together as possible, followed by paid updates of the same nature. Frequent small releases simply do not hit critical mass.

How big do these DLC's need to be for you? HOW or TTK size? Perhaps more importantly, how often should they drop?

I'd honestly be happen with HOW sized updates every 4 months (similar to what I proposed earlier) but maybe a larger drop every 6 months could work too.

While I like big content drops with significant additions to the game space, the Halo 4 "Spartan Ops" were enjoyable weekly small content bumps that were lots of fun and kept me coming back.

For those who didn't play, the Spartan Ops were basically weekly missions and bounties that came with new dialog and a cutscene furthering the plot of Halo 4. The missions reused levels and enemies, but often added new twists to the gamespace via Forge objects and enemies, or victory conditions.

From a Destiny standpoint it would work like a weekly quest line that emphasized some lore or plot point. Give some marks, rep and a chance at a rare strike weapon or gear at the end, and you would further incentivise players to try something new each week.

Add something similar with Shaxx and Crucible politicking from the various forges for PVP, and you have two more weekly activities that people would eat up from both a reward and lore perspective.

Destiny's gameplay is pretty solid, the major open complaint is that the story is still pretty sparse. This would address that complaint while still confining the work to the Live team for the most part.

I would consider something comparable to the weekly Spartan Ops missions to be major content, compared to what we've been getting. And I would actually love to see something like that in Destiny.

What do you want? Should Bungie dedicate more resources to help the live team? Does Destiny even need more frequent updates? Or should they go with a more Halo style game?

A huge disadvantage to continuous content releases is that your team is working continuously.

With good project management, this means your team works steadily, 40 hours a week, no overtime, very healthy!

But this is game development, and once one of your monthly releases gets held up two weeks by an unexpected snag, now you've got to crunch to make up two weeks of schedule. While crunching you take shortcuts, or delay work, and meanwhile problems are building up on the *next* release, and you've got to tackle them with a tired team...

...and worst of all, the teams at the end of the production cycle (like localization) have to crunch the hardest, because all the project wake and delays pile up on them.

Soon you have a bunch of burnouts who can't work at capacity. Because they can't get as much done per hour, they crunch harder to do the same amount of work, burning them out further, and the cycle continues. They start quitting, or contemplating suicide and going to the hospital, or drinking too hard, and before you know it you're doing real human damage to your team.

Crunch is very bad :(

What do you want? Should Bungie dedicate more resources to help the live team? Does Destiny even need more frequent updates? Or should they go with a more Halo style game?

A huge disadvantage to continuous content releases is that your team is working continuously.

With good project management, this means your team works steadily, 40 hours a week, no overtime, very healthy!

But this is game development, and once one of your monthly releases gets held up two weeks by an unexpected snag, now you've got to crunch to make up two weeks of schedule. While crunching you take shortcuts, or delay work, and meanwhile problems are building up on the *next* release, and you've got to tackle them with a tired team...

...and worst of all, the teams at the end of the production cycle (like localization) have to crunch the hardest, because all the project wake and delays pile up on them.

Soon you have a bunch of burnouts who can't work at capacity. Because they can't get as much done per hour, they crunch harder to do the same amount of work, burning them out further, and the cycle continues. They start quitting, or contemplating suicide and going to the hospital, or drinking too hard, and before you know it you're doing real human damage to your team.

Crunch is very bad :(

:( Yeah, burnout definitely crossed my mind. I wouldn't ever advocate for a system that hurts a team like that. Would each set be tied to the previous release to attempt to midi gate that? Then time gate it till the appropriate month? Then have another team on the next set? This would give each team a break? Am I just rambling incoherently!?

But this is game development, and once one of your monthly releases gets held up two weeks by an unexpected snag, now you've got to crunch to make up two weeks of schedule.

This could be mitigated by having staggered teams? Bungie has 750 people working for them now. I'd think not all of them are working on exactly the same thing. Also, as far as I know Dark Below, House of Wolves, and Taken King were all being developed at the same time at one point. If House of Wolves were delayed that wouldn't affect Taken King, would it?

But this is game development, and once one of your monthly releases gets held up two weeks by an unexpected snag, now you've got to crunch to make up two weeks of schedule.

This could be mitigated by having staggered teams? Bungie has 750 people working for them now. I'd think not all of them are working on exactly the same thing. Also, as far as I know Dark Below, House of Wolves, and Taken King were all being developed at the same time at one point. If House of Wolves were delayed that wouldn't affect Taken King, would it?

In theory, yeah, but in practice there is (was, I have no idea how it works now) only one localization team, one investment team, one fiction team, probably only one of some other teams I didn't get to work with much. And changes made by one team - say, investment redesigning all the scopes and attachments - drop onto other teams - now writing has to redo all the strings describing those scopes and attachments, and localization has to translate them.

And a lot of these teams (like loc) are near the end of the workflow, so if (in your example) House of Wolves got delayed, now localization's House of Wolves crunch is extended into their Taken King crunch, and you've got a really long crunch period.

When things are going badly on a project that's launching *soon* you tend to pull resources off projects pulling *later* to help.

e: basically everything I said here is probably completely out of date, and The Taken King turned out great. I just get protective about those poor loc guys

This could be mitigated by doing something similar to TV shows. Basically, you batch up the content release so they are largely done before you push them out for players. Then you release them in a timed manner to give players new things to do on a regular schedule to keep them interested in the game.

Of course, if you are doing that you could also just release all of the content at once and just let players consume it at their own pace.

This could be mitigated by doing something similar to TV shows. Basically, you batch up the content release so they are largely done before you push them out for players. Then you release them in a timed manner to give players new things to do on a regular schedule to keep them interested in the game.

This is only how it works over at Netflix.

For everywhere else that does broadcast, you may have 2 or 3 upcoming shows done, but while the season is airing, you definitely have people still in post on the later episodes.

Sure, but the filming is done. They are basically applying the finishing touches.

Sure, but the filming is done. They are basically applying the finishing touches.

Post production is not 'the finishing touches'. Post production always takes longer than the actual filming.