What's Your Biggest Worry?

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Thursday, August 01, 2013, 17:26 (4134 days ago) @ Cody Miller

So, that out of the way, what are some of your worries?

My biggest worry is that Bungie is going to succumb to the shitty modern design philosophy of making rewards an important part of the game, through gear, experience, and player investment systems.

Imagine for a second that Bungie designed Destiny without a save feature. It would rule and here's why.

First of all, you'd probably wonder HOW such a thing could even work.

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Let's say at this point you stop playing.

Tomorrow, you turn on Destiny, and you find yourself at the start, with a bare slate since you can;t save anything. But you still have that information. So you go, and instead of doing the first quest again, you go access the hidden entrance. Maybe after completing this quest you get some story information, and hints on things to do next.

Congratulations, you've just re-invented the choose-your-own-adventure book.

What would this force Bungie to do? Well, first of all, it would force Bungie to perfectly pace missions / levels etc, and make sure that they are constantly engaging and novel, something that arcade designers generally mastered because you couldn't save. Second, it would force Bungie to create fun situations, by virtue of the fact that it would be impossible to tempt players with rewards, since you can't save exp, weapon progression, loot, or anything like that. The game itself has to be fun enough to play without bullshit player investment systems. Third, it would force impeccable planning and design in the scenario and story construction.

This limitation would force Bungie to discard all the bullshit that modern game design has heaped upon us, and distill the game to its most streamlined, pure, and elegant form. Is this mission fun without the ability to save? No? Then it's shit, we'd better make it fun!

How would that force them to do anything?