We've seen zero puppies in the Destiny universe.

Heh, that's the point. THEY BLEW UP ALL OF THEM!

(We have seen fully grown wolves, so puppies existing in-universe is pretty logical)

We've seen zero puppies in the Destiny universe.

I've posted before about the story where Jamie blew off a marketing firm who made a trailer for the original Halo because it was heavy metal and explosions cut quickly. The reason? "That's not our game…"

This doesn't seem like Destiny.

You mean this doesn't seem like the game where having dance parties in front of world destroying creatures and doing stunts on vehicles in the middle of warzones is canon?

Because no matter how cool and awesome a trailer is in terms of gameplay, people don't talk about that. They talk about that funny commercial they just saw.

"Funny".

Apparently you don't like funny in your oh so serious game trailers. I can understand you didn't like the vibe of the trailer. But you're also a very very very small part of the player base. This is about getting the word out about Destiny 2. Humor is a great way to do that.

I've posted before about the story where Jamie blew off a marketing firm who made a trailer for the original Halo because it was heavy metal and explosions cut quickly. The reason? "That's not our game…"

This doesn't seem like Destiny.

Which funny because I can think of several instances where this feels exactly like Destiny. This is exactly how I expect Cayde to do things and I'm perfectly okay with that. And how the fireteam responds reminds me of playing with DBO people. Heck, when the titan goes all Leroy Jenkins because of puppies it reminds me of when a bunch of us were doing the WotM raid and we shot the guys head to start the fight. We didn't even know that would start the encounter and we ran around like chickens with our heads cut off.

I get it. And I'm not against the usage of humor at all. There's just a way to do it I think. I've always thought it's better to have the humor come naturally from the character and situation, and not from literal jokes. We've seen zero puppies in the Destiny universe.

Cayde's entire character is someone who makes jokes. Do you mean the fireteam? Because to me the Titan Leroy Jenkens was very much situational humor. So was the part where the hunter was firing over her head while running past the gunfire. Those are just the two off the top of my head.

Because no matter how cool and awesome a trailer is in terms of gameplay, people don't talk about that. They talk about that funny commercial they just saw.

"Funny".

Apparently you don't like funny in your oh so serious game trailers. I can understand you didn't like the vibe of the trailer. But you're also a very very very small part of the player base. This is about getting the word out about Destiny 2. Humor is a great way to do that.

I get it. And I'm not against the usage of humor at all. There's just a way to do it I think. I've always thought it's better to have the humor come naturally from the character and situation, and not from literal jokes. We've seen zero puppies in the Destiny universe.

I've posted before about the story where Jamie blew off a marketing firm who made a trailer for the original Halo because it was heavy metal and explosions cut quickly. The reason? "That's not our game…"

This doesn't seem like Destiny.

^ Precisely.

Funny would be fine, if it matched the sort of humour that was in the game. This trailer doesn't do that.

I really don't think many people are going to buy it based off the humorous tone and then be upset that the game's tone doesn't match. In fact, as evidenced by most best selling FPS, most people don't buy FPS games for tone/story, they buy them for gameplay.

I have no idea what the percentages are, but personally speaking, I don't buy any game based on marketing because videogame marketing is often so flagrantly dishonest that it is virtually useless.

I mean, I expect an ad to try and make the product look good. That's obvious. But effective marketing does need to be somewhat honest about the nature of the product being sold. People like to know what they're getting for their money. You don't promote a horror movie by releasing trailers that make it look like a romance.

I was talking to a friend at Ubisoft about this very issue back when SplinterCell Blacklist came out. The trailers made it look like an explosion-filled high octane action game, when the game itself was very much NOT that. I said to him "this is just going to do a disservice to the game and to anyone who buys it based on this trailer".

Then I would say this trailer did a fine job since Destiny is a great action game. Like I said, gameplay is what most people buy an fps off of, not story.

From that angle, I think you're absolutely right. I just don't think it's safe or right to make assumptions like "people don't care about the story or tone, so we don't need to worry about portraying it accurately". Luke S and Mark N have specifically talked about how much effort Bungie has put into creating a compelling story that players will care about this time around. To have a trailer come along and say "nah, that doesn't really matter" is disappointing to me.

The other thing I always stress whenever these discussions about trailers come up is that these decisions matter because companies put so much time, thought, and money into marketing that you can learn a lot about their priorities from how they choose to market their game. This is something Joe Staten talked about a fair bit on one of the old Bungie Podcasts, regarding the ODST reveal trailer. So when I look at how Destiny 2 is being marketed (the trailers, specifically) I see some severe disconnects. I suspect (but can't prove) that we're seeing some marketing that was primarily handled by Activision (the reveal trailer and the Live Action trailer), and some that had more direct involvement from Bungie (the more traditional space-opera in-engine trailers).

If I'm right about that, then there's a fascinating "inside baseball" element to this whole thing. We can see what Bungie is excited about through their trailers, and then we can see what Activision is excited about/thinks gamers will like through their trailers.

NOT the game where my guardian screams "PUPPIES" before charging into battle.

Because whenever I'm playing with my Titan, I'll yell "PUPPIES" every time I pop a Super now.

But that doesn't mean there's a dissonance between that trailer and how I play with my friends.

NOT the game where my guardian screams "PUPPIES" before charging into battle.

You're right. Guardians never do silly things before charging into battle in this game.

NOT the game where my guardian screams "PUPPIES" before charging into battle.

The night before, as I raided with several DBOers, I made a point to yell the same silly phrase each time I killed an Oracle as we battles the Oracles then Templar in the Vault of Glass. It started out as something super silly. One of the others corrected be to something a bit more classy, and I used that short phrase over and over again. And it came in handy later as we were banging our heads against the Templar.

“Why is this so hard?” Someone asked.

“Because we always stood across the way with Icebreakers before” someone answered.

We failed over and over again, but then I shifted positions and focused on killing left side Oracles and the first one I killed I said my silly phrase and the entire group laughed. I don’t even remember what the phrase was now, something short like “hoorah” but with a bit more silliness and less military-ness. It was just a you had to be there in the moment type thing but it was fun to do and it helped keep the others similing and laughing and enjouying the Raid.

I’m one of the most dedicated around here to lore and tone, I got 31+ articles and 20,000 page views from them to prove it. But I’d also scream PUPPIES while charging into battle if it felt right. Like it did last night.

You seriously gotta lighten up man. Allow for a mix of serious and playful. We can have Sargent Johnson saying “Bip Bap Bam!” In commercials and still have ODST be one of the best and darkest entires in the Halo series. Just like Cayde-6 can hog more than his fair share of advertising time but Destiny 2 still be a game with a serious story to tell.

And this whole thing about false advertising? That’s pure crap and you know it.

Ah, the phrase was Huzzah! But said mostly in that way you’d say it if you were using it as a slowly repeating cheer if you were part of the crew of the HMS Surprise in the Master and Commander movie.