The hive mind finds a way (Destiny)

by Stephen Laughlin , Long Beach, CA, Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 04:41 (4106 days ago) @ Pyromancy
edited by Stephen Laughlin, Wednesday, August 28, 2013, 04:56

I stuffed a request into this week's mail sack. Maybe, if we're lucky, we'll get some Bungie help on solving the rest of the puzzle

Thinking aloud here (rhetorical ramblings of a mad man);
Lately, I've strangely been regretting bringing up my findings in this thread right away.
Sure, this could be a localized "puzzle" with absolutely no use beyond the shirt. And maybe I just followed the bread crumbs exactly as they wanted and planned somebody to, but I've been worrying about the possibility that there was going to be more future uses in game that have since been changed/removed as the lead has been discovered? Maybe this could have developed further if it wasn't noticed/"solved" so early?

I love getting confirmation from the sources. It is always nice to have the certainty. But at the same time I've always hated the idea of "crossing the fourth wall". It has always felt like cheating in a way to me.

I wouldn't worry about it. Puzzles are meant to be solved. We're talking about the same company who had final say on the I Love Bees scripts and was able to witness firsthand how that whole phenomenon unfolded, not to mention the Marathon story page, HBO and such. I would be very surprised if Bungie didn't have a grasp by now on what absurd feats the hive mind can achieve when given the correct stimulus. They ought to know how to react in a constructive and collaborative way.

I'm reminded of the ILB aftermath when it became clear how much work the developers had put into creating new material interactively in a sort of call-and-response with the huge collective intelligence that had arisen and was suddenly churning out its own unique content and problem solving systems. There was a positive feedback loop between designers and players that resulted in a really compelling experience for everyone involved.

This is a good read if you have some time to kill. It's a paper from one of the ILB puppet masters.

Regardless, someone definitely knew what they were doing when that "Welcome" image was posted. It would have been decoded sooner or later. If anything, this should encourage Bungie to throw more challenging puzzles at us, so don't be disappointed.