A pet peeve of mine (Destiny)

by CruelLEGACEY , Toronto, Wednesday, April 25, 2018, 09:01 (2397 days ago) @ Ragashingo

No. It's nowhere close to false advertising. You have got to be reasonable. And making that claim when each of those videos proceeded an hour's worth of showing the game as it is... is just not intellectually supportable.

Yes, it is supportable. First, you’re making the giant false assumption that this cutscene is only being viewed within the context of the live-stream. But that’s patently untrue. It exists on YouTube as a stand-alone piece of marketing. Plus, nobody HERE is going to be fooled or misled by it. We know the game. My “false advertising” statement kicks in when this trailer is viewed by those who aren’t already familiar with how Destiny plays.

When any developer creates any form of marketing to promote their game, potential customers look to that content to give them an idea about the kind of game they’re going to play. If I see a guardian doing all sorts of cool stuff that makes me say “that’s awesome, and it looks like it would be a lot of fun to do!”, then I pick up the controller and find that my guardian can’t do those things at all, that is misleading advertising.

Even if we take the perspective of “advertising” away (since this Warmind piece appears to be an in-game cutscene that is being used for marketing), it’s still creating a frustrating and disappointing contrast where I sit there with the controller in my hands wishing I could do the cool things I just saw on screen.

There’s another layer to this, which I’ll get to below.

Beyond that... come on! Live a little, man! Let your imagination out of that dark, cold cellar you've apparently stuffed it in. If all you can think about is the things you can't do when watching the single best Destiny cutscene ever then... well... the words I'm searching for I can't say because Destiny is rated T for Teen. :/

“Live a little”? Really dude? What exactly am I supposed to have a lively relationship with here? The masterful dramatic narrative that is the Destiny universe? [Taeko 3 voice] Real talk [/Taeko 3 voice], I have a great imagination... but I’m not going to use it to prop up bad writing and poor storytelling in a franchise that I don’t trust to ever deliver a fiction-based payoff. I play Destiny for the gameplay, the eye candy, and to have fun with my friends. Bungie’s work over the past 3 years has trained me to expect that, and nothing more. I go into a Destiny cutscene with such low expectations (since I don’t care about the story), the least I can expect is some level of thought towards vaguely consistent world building. And that extends to the things guardians can do in the Destiny world.

I get why the cutscene writer(s) include such moments. They look cool, and it makes sense for Guardians to be able to do such things. That right there is the ultimate point of contention for me. We’re seeing guardians do cool things that they obviously should be able to do in cutscenes, but for some reason we can’t do it in-game.

Also, I’ve gotta call you out (in a friendly way) on saying “the best Destiny cutscene ever” as if that holds any weight. I don’t say that as a criticism of the work done by the people who create the cutscenes, it’s just that Destiny’s story is such a lost cause at this point. Even when we have a very cool cutscene, like the one about Zavala, it’s about freaking Zavala; a character too lame and dull and uninteresting to care about. Or that Curse of Osiris prologue, which I thought was very cool. How well did that pay off? ;)

Are there real examples that do go too far beyond what a game actually offers? Sure. But neither of your examples are them.

Counterpoint; the examples I mentioned are particularly annoying precisely because they’re relatively minor actions. Watching 117 fly out of the air lock and fall towards the Covenant ship? That was awesome, and didn’t bother me in the least. It made sense to show that moment, rather than play it. My suspension of disbelief was stretched a little, but it was worth it to deliver such a powerful moment.

Back to the Destiny examples, they’re not big grand actions that serve better as spectacle, thus justify a cutscene in place of gameplay. They’re small actions that make sense within the context of the game world, and look fun as hell. And personally, I feel their absence acutely. Every time I play Destiny, I feel like I should be able to do those kinds of things. They’re actions that so clearly fit, the writers have Guardians do it in cutscenes.

Throughout all this, please understand that I don’t think any of this is a big deal. I used the phrase “pet peeve” intentionally. It annoys me a bit, that’s all.