Apparently review copies will be sent out Monday. That's… interesting.

I would have been very interested to hear about the amount of content, as well as the level of investment necessary to experience it all so that I could plan my time accordingly.

I think the idea is they want the game to be populated when its reviewed.

It kinda makes any review a bit pointless doesn't it? Why take the time to read a review when I could just keep playing the game and decide for myself? I wonder how upset the gaming journalist world is over this. :)

That seems like a reasonable explanation with a worldwide release (I believe). It'll stress the servers to a good level and give the reviewers a good taste of what to expect with this final product.

I think the idea is they want the game to be populated when its reviewed.

I remember a review after the alpha where the reviewer spent most of his time talking about how empty it felt. They probably don't want a bunch of those since they've been pushing the shared world aspect so much.

Apparently review copies will be sent out Monday. That's… interesting.

I would have been very interested to hear about the amount of content, as well as the level of investment necessary to experience it all so that I could plan my time accordingly.

Interesting, if copies are going out, then they aren't running one of those two day "Intesive" review sessions that publishers seem to love, but are kind of gross.

Edit: wait, 1 day? Err no, nevermind, that's pretty gross too.

Very plausible. Typically that would set off the warning sirens in my head but I'm not too worried about the implications for this one, everyone got enough of a taste of it out of the beta that I don't think they can really sneak anything past the public.

Very plausible. Typically that would set off the warning sirens in my head but I'm not too worried about the implications for this one, everyone got enough of a taste of it out of the beta that I don't think they can really sneak anything past the public.

I don't know. I can't think of a single game in which reviews were held back until after release that didn't turn out to be either garbage, or disappointing. That's why it is so puzzling.

I don't know. I can't think of a single game in which reviews were held back until after release that didn't turn out to be either garbage, or disappointing. That's why it is so puzzling.

Unless Bungie and Activision have pulled a Colonial Marines and threw away everything people loved so dearly in the beta, I can't possibly imagine that this is the case.

I don't know. I can't think of a single game in which reviews were held back until after release that didn't turn out to be either garbage, or disappointing. That's why it is so puzzling.

Unless Bungie and Activision have pulled a Colonial Marines and threw away everything people loved so dearly in the beta, I can't possibly imagine that this is the case.

Yeah. The only possible thing I can think of could be the size and scope of the game being less than it was hyped to be, leading to disappointment.

Yeah. The only possible thing I can think of could be the size and scope of the game being less than it was hyped to be, leading to disappointment.

Maybe, but I think that Bungie has made it pretty clear to as much of an extent as possible without spoiling anything about how expansive this game is. They'd really have nothing to gain by saying one thing only to have it made abundantly clear that they were bullshitting within seconds of the game being released.

Not like fucking Gearbox and that poor fucking excuse for an Aliens game. Dicks.

Yeah. The only possible thing I can think of could be the size and scope of the game being less than it was hyped to be, leading to disappointment.

Maybe, but I think that Bungie has made it pretty clear to as much of an extent as possible without spoiling anything about how expansive this game is.

Maybe, but on my desktop rotation right now is a picture of a base on Europa or some other cold moon of Jupiter… I really wanted to go there, as well as many other places in their art reveal.

Maybe, but on my desktop rotation right now is a picture of a base on Europa or some other cold moon of Jupiter… I really wanted to go there, as well as many other places in their art reveal.

Europe looks gorgeous and is probably a lot of fun in its own unique way, but from what I see there, it looks just like a snowy version of the abandoned metropolis on Mars.

Hopefully we'll see whatever they have in store for Europe in an expansion pack or in a later game. I honestly wasn't expecting us to have full access to every celestial body in our solar system anyways, not this early on in the series at least.

It kinda makes any review a bit pointless doesn't it? Why take the time to read a review when I could just keep playing the game and decide for myself? I wonder how upset the gaming journalist world is over this. :)

Yeah, I don't see how Bungie could do it any other way. Since Destiny is dependent upon a population in its functioning, reviewing it without one would not be reviewing Destiny at all.

Advanced reviews often feel like marketing strategies (although I guess they don't always work if the game is truly terrible); I prefer these days to try things out myself or talk to people I know to discover art & entertainment (I also don't enjoy assigning numbers, letters, or stars to those things anymore - my compulsive brain gets all caught up on the ordering when I do, so that's another nail in the coffin).

Hell, I need like a month to think about a game or a movie or a book, and multiple sittings or viewings or reads before I feel qualified to say anything about it. When I played Tomb Raider (2013) recently, I wasn't a fan at all the first few days, and then a week later I was sad there wasn't more to do. Reviews don't have the luxury to accommodate such ways of experiencing things - they need to be posted quickly with a catchy title. And then they seem to influence the words associated with the thing in question like dominoes. Buzzwords? Trends? They make me as frightened as a deer in the headlights of a truck driven by the deer-husband of the deer-wife the deer is having an affair with.

These issues are especially evident to me when I go back to classic movies held in high regard now and read their initial reviews - they're surprisingly poor and drastically different sometimes.

Maybe, but on my desktop rotation right now is a picture of a base on Europa or some other cold moon of Jupiter… I really wanted to go there, as well as many other places in their art reveal.

Europe looks gorgeous and is probably a lot of fun in its own unique way, but from what I see there, it looks just like a snowy version of the abandoned metropolis on Mars.

Hopefully we'll see whatever they have in store for Europe in an expansion pack or in a later game. I honestly wasn't expecting us to have full access to every celestial body in our solar system anyways, not this early on in the series at least.

Wait, Europe gets its own planet in the future? :P

Just like withe any online-only game, there's not much of a point in playing it before it exists in the form everyone else is going to be playing it in. Reviews are kind of weird for any kind of game like this, because it's impossible to predict what the game will be like when it's populated by clans and people are able to clear the raid on hard, and other stuff is going on in a live environment. Not that I need a review to tell me about a game I've already played, but it would also be impossible for a reviewer to effectively share their opinion on Destiny on a typical review schedule.

Europe looks gorgeous and is probably a lot of fun in its own unique way, but from what I see there, it looks just like a snowy version of the abandoned metropolis on Mars.

Hopefully we'll see whatever they have in store for Europe in an expansion pack or in a later game. I honestly wasn't expecting us to have full access to every celestial body in our solar system anyways, not this early on in the series at least.

Wait, Europe gets its own planet in the future? :P

Well, technically they kinda did until the 1970's or so, but that's a whole other issue.

Maybe, but on my desktop rotation right now is a picture of a base on Europa or some other cold moon of Jupiter… I really wanted to go there, as well as many other places in their art reveal.

Europe looks gorgeous and is probably a lot of fun in its own unique way, but from what I see there, it looks just like a snowy version of the abandoned metropolis on Mars.

Hopefully we'll see whatever they have in store for Europe in an expansion pack or in a later game. I honestly wasn't expecting us to have full access to every celestial body in our solar system anyways, not this early on in the series at least.

Wait, Europe gets its own planet in the future? :P

Yeah dude. European Dead zone.

Yeah, I don't see how Bungie could do it any other way. Since Destiny is dependent upon a population in its functioning, reviewing it without one would not be reviewing Destiny at all.

I do not see how this is true at all. If it is, then how do reviewers review multiplayer shooters and the like? I feel like folks saying this have not even played the game. Other random players are not a huge part of Destiny. If you review the game with two other people playing the story and strike, and play crucible with other reviewers as has been done for tons of other multiplayer shooters, you could absolutely come to a conclusion.

Advanced reviews often feel like marketing strategies (although I guess they don't always work if the game is truly terrible); I prefer these days to try things out myself or talk to people I know to discover art & entertainment (I also don't enjoy assigning numbers, letters, or stars to those things anymore - my compulsive brain gets all caught up on the ordering when I do, so that's another nail in the coffin).

This is why Ebert had it right with thumbs up and thumbs down. Good or bad. How good or how bad? Read the review.

Hell, I need like a month to think about a game or a movie or a book, and multiple sittings or viewings or reads before I feel qualified to say anything about it.

There is some truth to this, although if a game is bad you don't need to play it very long to come to that conclusion and say why. Same thing with a good game. The thing that takes time, is determining whether the game is good, or if it is great.

Yeah it is a big red flag, the only thing I can think of is that the beta was such a huge success that they have only to lose and nothing to gain by subjecting the game to reviews. I'm just having a hard time imagining what they could hide that wasn't in the beta. Cohesive story issues? Scope of the vanilla game? I know I'm disappointed about that but we already know about it anyhow. Maybe every boss in the game is as boring as the spider tank? I suspect it's probably just a nothing to gain situation.

The most obvious reason to me would be that they want reviewers to be able to play the game just like the normal player-base will. That would include having enough of a population for random encounters to happen frequently.

Aside from this, the interesting thing about review occurring during release time is that the infrastructure will be under a hell of a lot of load at this time. It's a pretty ballsy move; ff it all falls over because of the load, then surely the reviews will reflect that. Reviews done before release are obviously less likely to encounter such problems since the reviewers will essentially have the infrastructure to themselves.

Yeah, I don't see how Bungie could do it any other way. Since Destiny is dependent upon a population in its functioning, reviewing it without one would not be reviewing Destiny at all.

I do not see how this is true at all. If it is, then how do reviewers review multiplayer shooters and the like? I feel like folks saying this have not even played the game. Other random players are not a huge part of Destiny. If you review the game with two other people playing the story and strike, and play crucible with other reviewers as has been done for tons of other multiplayer shooters, you could absolutely come to a conclusion.

I strongly disagree with you on this. Running into randoms while playing explore/story missions was really important to me. All the other multiplayer shooters have a much more straight forward approach to matchmaking which would allow a small group of reviewers along with some friends and family to allow you to test the multiplayer.

I strongly disagree with you on this. Running into randoms while playing explore/story missions was really important to me. All the other multiplayer shooters have a much more straight forward approach to matchmaking which would allow a small group of reviewers along with some friends and family to allow you to test the multiplayer.

I'd love for you to elaborate a little bit so I can see others' perspective here.

My experience was that I would occasionally see someone in the tower or in an explore area, largely doing their own thing with no way to talk to them. It's basically like having friendly marines occasionally show up in Halo. The journey style matchmaking didn't seem to significantly change the game, since you were probably doing different things, and you couldn't talk. The public events aren't that fun. All the fun is through fireteams, which can be formed by reviewers.

I'm not saying you are wrong in your assessment, it's just that I don't feel that way. Can you let me know why you think it was so important? Maybe I've been playing wrong this whole time. I'd like to hear your thoughts and experiences.

With random Guardians you meet out in the wild, you can often feel a sense of natural camaraderie to help each other out in whatever little skirmish that makes you feel powerless. It's always nice having a helping hand, no matter if they're your most bestest friend, a fellow forum goer from your favorite community, or just some random stranger charging in on their Sparrow out of the blue.

It's just a lot of fun. I don't know how many times I encountered a little group of randoms, tagged along, and spent an hour just doing little side missions. You can certainly have that with people you already know, sure, but you aren't meeting anyone new.

I strongly disagree with you on this. Running into randoms while playing explore/story missions was really important to me. All the other multiplayer shooters have a much more straight forward approach to matchmaking which would allow a small group of reviewers along with some friends and family to allow you to test the multiplayer.

I'd love for you to elaborate a little bit so I can see others' perspective here.

My experience was that I would occasionally see someone in the tower or in an explore area, largely doing their own thing with no way to talk to them. It's basically like having friendly marines occasionally show up in Halo. The journey style matchmaking didn't seem to significantly change the game, since you were probably doing different things, and you couldn't talk. The public events aren't that fun. All the fun is through fireteams, which can be formed by reviewers.

I'm not saying you are wrong in your assessment, it's just that I don't feel that way. Can you let me know why you think it was so important? Maybe I've been playing wrong this whole time. I'd like to hear your thoughts and experiences.

Fair enough, I think we just differ on what portion of the fun lies where. I do think a good bit of the fun is in fireteams and that you could still have a good experience with the game playing it in a more traditional fashion

For the whole Alpha and for a good portion of the Beta I wasn't in a fireteam. So whenever I was alone and running around an environment or getting caught up in some crazy event (one time a bunch of higher level Hive and Fallen descended on that area you start the Devil's Lair strike), I'd run into other guardians and we'd fight shoulder to shoulder and at the end we'd point at each other and dance.

This was really special for me as I've been moving around the world a bunch the last few years and the times I'm playing don't really align with my mates back in the states. This has lead to me playing a lot of single player or mainly competitive games which definitely left a big hole in my playing with friendlies experience.

So when I ended up in the Alpha for the first time and I ran over one of the first hills and some other guardian was waving at me, it hit me like a ton of bricks, and I noticed I had a huge grin on my face. I don't think it'd be fair to Destiny for it to be reviewed without one of its defining features fully realized.

- No text -

Apparently review copies will be sent out Monday. That's… interesting.

I would have been very interested to hear about the amount of content, as well as the level of investment necessary to experience it all so that I could plan my time accordingly.

They're not turning on/opening up the servers until 9/9, no exceptions.* That's probably the biggest reason.

* except for internal testers, but letting reviewers into that environment could be a mess, or worse

Yeah, I don't see how Bungie could do it any other way. Since Destiny is dependent upon a population in its functioning, reviewing it without one would not be reviewing Destiny at all.

I do not see how this is true at all. If it is, then how do reviewers review multiplayer shooters and the like? I feel like folks saying this have not even played the game. Other random players are not a huge part of Destiny. If you review the game with two other people playing the story and strike, and play crucible with other reviewers as has been done for tons of other multiplayer shooters, you could absolutely come to a conclusion.

Bungie seems to think other players are a big factor. Whether they are or not, it makes sense they'd want that element to be present for critics.

Advanced reviews often feel like marketing strategies (although I guess they don't always work if the game is truly terrible); I prefer these days to try things out myself or talk to people I know to discover art & entertainment (I also don't enjoy assigning numbers, letters, or stars to those things anymore - my compulsive brain gets all caught up on the ordering when I do, so that's another nail in the coffin).

This is why Ebert had it right with thumbs up and thumbs down. Good or bad. How good or how bad? Read the review.

I think there's a point to be made there, there's some value there, but it's too polarizing. I think a lot of people won't read the review and will just watch something (or play or read or eat it) based on a thumbs-up, or more likely, not watch it based on a thumbs-down. As empty as it often is, a statement along the lines of "meh" is very important to have available.

Hell, I need like a month to think about a game or a movie or a book, and multiple sittings or viewings or reads before I feel qualified to say anything about it.

There is some truth to this, although if a game is bad you don't need to play it very long to come to that conclusion and say why. Same thing with a good game. The thing that takes time, is determining whether the game is good, or if it is great.

Don't you think that should be a goal of critics?

I do not see how this is true at all. If it is, then how do reviewers review multiplayer shooters and the like?

This is actually a big part of the reason why many review sites have had "ongoing" reviews, or they will update their reviews periodically for up to a year after launch. This will probably become a much more common practice as more and more games depend on online-only features.

My experience was that I would occasionally see someone in the tower or in an explore area, largely doing their own thing with no way to talk to them. It's basically like having friendly marines occasionally show up in Halo. The journey style matchmaking didn't seem to significantly change the game, since you were probably doing different things, and you couldn't talk. The public events aren't that fun. All the fun is through fireteams, which can be formed by reviewers.

I actually don't want to correct you that much, hence why I haven't corrected you or kapowaz (at least not here), but you could talk to people, through fireteams as you mentioned, and through party chat. I bring this up because I think Bungie might be disregarding comments like these as people not getting the interface and the possibilities or purposefully exaggerating, and I think the fact people are not realizing these possibilities or forgetting about them or acting like they're not worth the time and effort to use and discuss (even though it's minimal!) shows that these options aren't good enough.

I actually don't want to correct you that much, hence why I haven't corrected you or kapowaz (at least not here), but you could talk to people, through fireteams as you mentioned, and through party chat. I bring this up because I think Bungie might be disregarding comments like these as people not getting the interface and the possibilities or purposefully exaggerating, and I think the fact people are not realizing these possibilities or forgetting about them or acting like they're not worth the time and effort to use and discuss (even though it's minimal!) shows that these options aren't good enough.

Dude. If you want to talk to a random you have to:

1. Get physically close to them to be able to click them with the stick.
2. Invite them to your fire team
3. They drop out, reload, and drop back in

That is so inconvenient, you practically cannot talk with randoms.

I actually don't want to correct you that much, hence why I haven't corrected you or kapowaz (at least not here), but you could talk to people, through fireteams as you mentioned, and through party chat. I bring this up because I think Bungie might be disregarding comments like these as people not getting the interface and the possibilities or purposefully exaggerating, and I think the fact people are not realizing these possibilities or forgetting about them or acting like they're not worth the time and effort to use and discuss (even though it's minimal!) shows that these options aren't good enough.

Dude. If you want to talk to a random you have to:

1. Get physically close to them to be able to click them with the stick.
2. Invite them to your fire team
3. They drop out, reload, and drop back in

That is so inconvenient, you practically cannot talk with randoms.

Or you could do the more sensible thing and invite them into a private chat using the system level options on the console of your choice. No one drops in or out of anywhere unless you actually, you know, WANT to join a Fireteam.

I actually don't want to correct you that much, hence why I haven't corrected you or kapowaz (at least not here), but you could talk to people, through fireteams as you mentioned, and through party chat. I bring this up because I think Bungie might be disregarding comments like these as people not getting the interface and the possibilities or purposefully exaggerating, and I think the fact people are not realizing these possibilities or forgetting about them or acting like they're not worth the time and effort to use and discuss (even though it's minimal!) shows that these options aren't good enough.

Dude. If you want to talk to a random you have to:

1. Get physically close to them to be able to click them with the stick.
2. Invite them to your fire team
3. They drop out, reload, and drop back in

That is so inconvenient, you practically cannot talk with randoms.

Did you read my whole post? Firstly, you're still leaving out party chat. I don't know how it works on PlayStation, but on Xbox you can invite someone to your Xbox Live party and talk with them. Secondly, I agree with you. Like, no caveats, I 100% agree with you. I said I was pointing it out because I think maybe Bungie will consider it more or differently if it's (based on something) closer to the (technical) truth.

I actually don't want to correct you that much, hence why I haven't corrected you or kapowaz (at least not here), but you could talk to people, through fireteams as you mentioned, and through party chat. I bring this up because I think Bungie might be disregarding comments like these as people not getting the interface and the possibilities or purposefully exaggerating, and I think the fact people are not realizing these possibilities or forgetting about them or acting like they're not worth the time and effort to use and discuss (even though it's minimal!) shows that these options aren't good enough.

Dude. If you want to talk to a random you have to:

1. Get physically close to them to be able to click them with the stick.
2. Invite them to your fire team
3. They drop out, reload, and drop back in

That is so inconvenient, you practically cannot talk with randoms.

Or you could do the more sensible thing and invite them into a private chat using the system level options on the console of your choice. No one drops in or out of anywhere unless you actually, you know, WANT to join a Fireteam.

I know I kind of just said this, but he has a point in that if you want to move with that group to some other activity, you do have to form a fireteam. I also feel like I should say the requirement to go to orbit and back is so inconvenient I expect them to fix it-- if they don't, it's a major, major point against social interaction.

Apparently review copies will be sent out Monday. That's… interesting.

I would have been very interested to hear about the amount of content, as well as the level of investment necessary to experience it all so that I could plan my time accordingly.

Yes. We get it. You do not like the investment system. I do not think there is anyone here unaware of that.

Apparently review copies will be sent out Monday. That's… interesting.

I would have been very interested to hear about the amount of content, as well as the level of investment necessary to experience it all so that I could plan my time accordingly.

Once again, you come here with a partial story (gained from an unofficial source), and draw conclusions you're unhappy with.

Sometimes you really disappoint me.

Sometimes you really disappoint me.

Nobody's perfect.

Also what conclusion did I draw again? That we can't go to Europa? That's fact.

Sometimes you really disappoint me.

Nobody's perfect.

Also what conclusion did I draw again? That we can't go to Europa? That's fact.

You heard (from someone) that review copies would be sent out Monday, and decided that that meant that there would be no timely reviews that included real information about the game.

Sometimes you really disappoint me.

Nobody's perfect.

Also what conclusion did I draw again? That we can't go to Europa? That's fact.

You heard (from someone) that review copies would be sent out Monday, and decided that that meant that there would be no timely reviews that included real information about the game.

You are right. I take it back because the situation did indeed change. Copies were sent friday. I also take back what I said about Europa, because it's NOT necessarily fact.

Wow I was totally wrong.

http://www.ign.com/articles/2014/09/03/destiny-review

They're heavily implying that they can't start to review it until September 8. So sure, I guess others could theoretically review the game without the full experience, or maybe have within Bungie or whatever, but that would seem like an odd thing to do if they can't get the full, real game experience to review for a mass audience. Just my thoughts. lol