One thing Bungie does right (Destiny)

by Kahzgul, Monday, April 18, 2016, 23:13 (3234 days ago) @ Ragashingo

When you make a game that revolves around loot, and especially revolves around giving it out slowly, you can't get mad at players for using anything and everything to give them an advantage to gain loot faster.

Why not?

Why does a developer lose the ability to enforce the rules they made in the game they made just because you don't like their rules? Does using "anything and everything" include killing other players with plastic sporks? Not their in game avatars, the actual players. It's a game with a loot system, the universal unlimited get out of jail and consequences card in gaming, so "anything and everything is justifiabl", right?

Personally, I think players should have the responsibility to play with fairness and sportsmanship. And those that don't should be punished. And when what is and isn't fair comes into question, they should err on the side of caution, especially when not doing so negatively and adversely effects the experiences of other players.

It's one thing to enforce the rules. It's entirely another to not tell people what the rules are or that you're going to enforce them, and then retroactively punish people for doing something you've now decided is against the rules.

The long version, as this relates to gaming, is - hey, aren't you're supposed to be writing something right now?

Distractions aside, a video game was designed by someone using computers. A game is, quite literally, just a collection of rules. So if you can do it in a game, it's permissible because if it wasn't allowed, they should have changed the rules (code) not to allow it. Slightly more nuanced is the understanding that games have "how they were intended to be played" and "bugs that allow you to play in a way other than how they were intended to be played." Given. But the developers can patch the game and fix the bugs (and Massive has been doing that), literally changing the rules that govern the game on the fly.

But rather than fix the rules to not allow behavior that is other than intended gameplay, Massive is stating that they're going to just punish people who do something they don't like. Retroactively. It's like outlawing cutoff jean shorts because full length jeans were never intended to be anything other than full length, and then arresting everyone who ever posted a picture of themselves on Facebook wearing cutoff jean shorts. And this simile holds up because in the world of code, it is totally possible to just make it so you can't cut denim.

It's a bad precedent to set up: Telling your players you may punish them in the future for things they did in the past, just because you decided you don't like it. With something like clipping through walls, that's a pretty clear bug, but what about loot items that are bugged to give you ever-replenishing health (this actually existed in the game)? Yes there's a bug, but if that's the only item you have for that slot you're telling your players that - even if they were not aware of the bug - you might punish them for it.