Agile (Destiny)

by Blackt1g3r , Login is from an untrusted domain in MN, Monday, September 15, 2014, 09:24 (3721 days ago) @ kidtsunami

Seems to me like Bungie is trying to move from Waterfall-style development to a more Agile-style development approach. In other words, instead of doing a bunch of big up-front design for the game and each expansion (which they still do some of I'm sure), they are moving towards an approach where they are constantly updating the game.

(Assumptions below, we'll see how it pans out in reality)

One possible example of this might show up soon in the "Queens Wrath" event. I'm thinking that will introduce additional "story" type missions that take place in the same existing geometry. It's not a full expansion because of it's limited scope, but it still adds new things to the game for players to do so they keep coming back. Plus, because Bungie has set up the game to be easier to adjust and update on-the-fly they can keep an eye on how things are working out for players and make game-balancing decisions without releasing a whole new game. Halo Reach had a similar setup where 343 was able to make some adjustments to the gameplay after release. Destiny has even more capabilities for adjustments.

A lot of people have been asking questions about why Destiny took so long to develop. I think it's because they've been building a lot of foundational architecture to support this kind of stuff. In addition to building a new engine that is capable of running on multiple platforms, they've had to build a lot of support tools to let them update the game much more dynamically than in the past.