A Thought About Destiny's Reception (Destiny)

by Doooskey, Kansas City, MO, Monday, September 15, 2014, 11:47 (3733 days ago)

Destiny is a great FPS. It has a fun story (mode), lot's of extra shooter activities (Strikes, Patrol, Modifiers, PVP Treasure Hunting, etc), but it is not an MMO. It borrows some elements from MMO's, but it is NOT an MMO. Bungie repeatedly said this. Destiny is a new kind of shooter.

If you come to it with a World of Warcraft perspective, it pales in comparison to the content available in that game. (and you will be disappointed in the content)

If you compare it to A+ ranked shooters, Halo 3 for example - IT HAS A TON OF CONTENT.

I think the reviewers had a hard time placing this game in the right genre. I think Bungie saw how many people played through Halo campaigns over and over and over and over... And they thought, "Hey! Let's make a game with more campaign type stuff, better gameplay, more customization, lot's of scales of difficulty, lot's of optional modifiers, and let's give people rewards for replaying the same content (although a LOT more content) over and over and over again.

With that mindset - if you compare Destiny to a normal FPS, it has a lot of content, with rewards for people who really press the difficulty and really like to replay the same content. However, if you like WOW type MMO's where the world is too big to explore - you will feel like Destiny is repetitive. If you don't get this, you won't get Destiny, and you will feel shorted.

This is why so many reviewers seem confused. Destiny is a GREAT shooter. The gunplay, the weapons, controlling a guardian - it is all executed so well. Every reviewer agrees. The PVP is incredible, they fixed a LOT from the Beta (if you hated the Beta PVP, you may love the full game). However, the reviewers came to Destiny expecting MMO content, and often call it an MMO. What is interesting about that, is that while Destiny uses the same content, (and obviously Bungie consider's playing the same strike with different modifiers or a different class an extension of the content) the level cap is hard to reach. (Are there any 28+ guardians yet?)

To me, Destiny is a great foundation, they built a nice 3 bedroom house, beautifully decorated, with a full finished basement and lots of space... But lot's of reviewers and players were expecting a mansion or a neighborhood. If that is you, eventually, Destiny will grow to that (I am guessing this is the current aim of the games progression, adding to what is already here, expanding the world we already have).

In my opinion this is a world class shooter. It doesn't innovate the genre, but it is almost perfectly executed. It has the potential to innovate the genre by growing into a size that I think everyone expected in the first release. One day we will have travels to Europa, to other places on the Earth, to a terra-formed Neptune? But for now, we don't.

I feel like I get it, I get what Bungie was trying and what Destiny is about. They were taking what really worked well in Halo (great shooter) and multiplying that content 5-6 times and giving people rewards for playing through it over and over on multiple difficulties.

As an MMO - Destiny deserves a 6 or 7

As an FPS - Destiny deserves a 9 or 10.

People are confused... Bungie knew it was hard to grasp, and it looks like it is hurting them even though they RAN from the idea of this being an MMO.