:( (Destiny)

by General Vagueness , The Vault of Sass, Sunday, September 07, 2014, 18:14 (3824 days ago) @ Phoenix_9286

It's funny, people joked about how next 343i was going to have us unlock armor colors because it seemed like the next step in the path of ridiculous unlockables, but Bungie actually does it and we're not mad, just kind of sad-- that's not something against DBO, I'm not mad either, and I can't really explain why, I would've expected to be, but I'm not.

When have you NOT been able to choose your armor color in Halo? The answer is never. If that option was suddenly locked out, it would make a lot of people very angry because it flies in the face of a system which has worked perfectly well since the beginning. See: Emblems in Halo 4.

That's a good point.

Destiny is (no duh) a different, new, game. There's no precedent for any of the customization options. We're starting new, and the new standard is preset, precolored emblems and preset, predesignated shader colors. It's disappointing to be sure, but it's silly to be angry about it because it was never any different.

That's also a good point, but I'm pretty sure a lot of other games let you pick your armor colors and tons of games let you pick an emblem or some picture to represent yourself without having to jump through hoops, so it would make sense to expect it in that context. Also I said I'm not angry, I just don't know why I'm not.

It took Halo what, four games and ten years to get all the features and customization we loved? I'm anticipating a similar trajectory with Destiny. In ten years we'll probably have all manner of new features this game doesn't, and Guardian customization will probably have exploded. Afterall, we've got armor, Sparrows, and ships. How cool would it be ten years from now to load your ship in the hangar, and GTA style start swapping out parts and painting it? Shaders are disappointing now, but I've got a good feeling they're just the gateway to something better.

I have a feeling you're right, but I slightly expected, and very, very much hoped, that since they had worked all that out with Halo, they wouldn't start from scratch all over again, because they know what people want, they have that experience, I would hope they have working code or at least fairly fleshed out pseudocode but that might get into copyright issues... most of all, they had time. They had all the time they wanted, unless they cut an unwise deal with Activision. (Also, I really don't want to wait ten years for this stuff, I would hope it would be in the very next game.)