The Dark Below content... *Updated*

This interview with Harold Ryan goes in depth with Destiny's story criticisms, the content of the new DLC, and addresses the recent leaks.

All the important content details:

-Release date: December 9, for $19.99/£19.99 if you don't buy the Season Pass,

-Light cap raised to 32, with new armor, weapons and "gear" added to the game. No specification on what the gear will be, beyond stating that "the new gear will facilitate progression beyond 30."
Armor:

Weapons:

(That Dragon's Breath rocket launcher...)

-Five new bounty slots for faster leveling,

-New NPC, Eris. Gives Hive-based story missions from the tower, including "three new missions where you can increase your Light and get new rewards".

-Strike will be called "The Will of Crota" with boss "Omnigul",

(Note how she's not a giant wizard...)

-Playstation exclusive strike "The Undying Mind", set in the Black Garden, with an exclusive Exotic item as well.

-"Crota's End" raid will not be available at launch, much like the Vault of Glass.

-Three new Crucible maps:

Pantheon, set in the Black Garden inside a Vex temple with tight corridors.
Skyshock, an old interplanetary defense array.
The Cauldron, an abandoned Hive ritual site focused on close combat.

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Playstation exclusive strike "The Undying Mind", set in the Black Garden, with an exclusive Exotic item as well.

I ain't even mad.

Looks like I'll have a chance at 7 more Raid runs to attempt to get boots and a chest piece for my Warlock. If I grind out my second Warlock, I could bump that to 14. Tick tock.

I've seen data-mined content that suggests there will be exotic materials, presumably for upgrading gear/weapons. If that's the case, I hope they can be used on any Legendary weapon.

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-Three new Crucible maps:

tight corridors.
focused on close combat.

If there's anything Destiny needs, it's more tight close quarters maps dominated by auto rifles and shotguns.

No, wait, it needs the opposite of that.

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It's no wonder why snipe sucks at and hates this game.

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-Three new Crucible maps:

tight corridors.
focused on close combat.

If there's anything Destiny needs, it's more tight close quarters maps dominated by auto rifles and shotguns.

No, wait, it needs the opposite of that.

11 maps,
5 made for mid-range combat, but that also accommodate long range (Bastion, Exodus Blue, First Light, Rusted Lands, Twilight Gap)
3 exclusive to small-scale close-quarters (Anomaly, Asylum, Burning Shrine)
3 full-team, tight-corridors maps where shotguns and auto rifles excel (Blind Watch, Firebase Delphi, Shores of Time)

5-3... I think one more mid-long range map and two close range maps help work towards having a balanced range...

And keep in mind that I don't use auto rifles or shotgun, so I definitely support more open maps... ...

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Sure, Bastion and Twilight Gap are supposed to be mid-range and theoretically can accommodate long-range, but I've spent a great deal of my battles in them close-range. There's just too much cover on Twilight Gap for effective mid-range and Bastion is really all about Control Point B.

In fact, I've probably had more mid-range combat on Firebase Delphi than Bastion and Twilight Gap combined...

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5 made for mid-range combat, but that also accommodate long range (Bastion, Exodus Blue, First Light, Rusted Lands, Twilight Gap)

One of those is not on Xbox. A majority of fighting in Bastion is in the middle hallways, especially around flag B. Twilight gap is close quarters except for a couple of spots. Rusted Lands has its spots, but auto rifles can still do fine on it all around. First Light is the best we've got, but I can spend an entire match of control in the close quarters areas and never have to worry about long distance fighters.

I'm wanting more full open maps in the spirit of the Blood Gulches and Valhalla. I haven't found a map yet where I felt that a scout rifle would be the best choice.

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I'm wanting more full open maps in the spirit of the Blood Gulches and Valhalla. I haven't found a map yet where I felt that a scout rifle would be the best choice.

You need vehicles and objectives that support that kind of gameplay.

Vehicles and objective game types are something that destiny MP does not have.

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5 made for mid-range combat, but that also accommodate long range (Bastion, Exodus Blue, First Light, Rusted Lands, Twilight Gap)

One of those is not on Xbox.

Ah yes, of course. That's a darn shame, friend...

A majority of fighting in Bastion is in the middle hallways, especially around flag B. Twilight gap is close quarters except for a couple of spots. Rusted Lands has its spots, but auto rifles can still do fine on it all around. First Light is the best we've got, but I can spend an entire match of control in the close quarters areas and never have to worry about long distance fighters.

I'm seeing a lot of "well, the way I play it is this...", which of course greatly affects your encounters. A great example is a large map like First Light, where some people never leave the interior corridors.
I've played a lot of games on Bastion where we kept the enemy team stuck on point B by sniping from C and holding them from A with scout/auto rifles and the interceptor that spawns nearby. It's all about mixing up your playstyle. I use Scout Rifles, Fusion Rifles, and Sniper Rifles, and the only thing I have trouble with is shotguns. Even in the games before the patch, I rarely ever went negative against teams of ARs and shotties, and that's because I knew what parts of the map to avoid, and what encounters I could play well through.

I'm wanting more full open maps in the spirit of the Blood Gulches and Valhalla. I haven't found a map yet where I felt that a scout rifle would be the best choice.

Destiny couldn't have a map like that. It's not Halo. Too many precision weapons with short kill times would turn it into a sniping gallery with a huge no-man's-land separating everything and minimal map movement and flow. Destiny is definitely more Crysis than Halo, but people can't seem to let go of their comfort zone...

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5 made for mid-range combat, but that also accommodate long range (Bastion, Exodus Blue, First Light, Rusted Lands, Twilight Gap)

One of those is not on Xbox.

Ah yes, of course. That's a darn shame, friend...

Why you dirty-

I'm wanting more full open maps in the spirit of the Blood Gulches and Valhalla. I haven't found a map yet where I felt that a scout rifle would be the best choice.

Destiny couldn't have a map like that. It's not Halo. Too many precision weapons with short kill times would turn it into a sniping gallery with a huge no-man's-land separating everything and minimal map movement and flow. Destiny is definitely more Crysis than Halo, but people can't seem to let go of their comfort zone...

Unfortunately, this. If a Scout Rifle would be great for a map, a Sniper would be better. And everyone can have Snipers. Essentially any big/open map is going to become Team Snipers.

Although, since I am a terrible sniper (and that may be understating it), I've always wondered if (for example) a DMR could be an option in Team Snipers. The player would be opting for a lesser alternative, but one they might be far better at using.

Such a thing might work in Halo, but not so much in Destiny, methinks. Snipers/long-range shooting render Supers obsolete (to some extent), which is what Destiny MP is built around. For better or worse, Destiny is a fast, short to mid-range MP experience.

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Such a thing might work in Halo, but not so much in Destiny, methinks. Snipers/long-range shooting render Supers obsolete (to some extent), which is what Destiny MP is built around. For better or worse, Destiny is a fast, short to mid-range MP experience.

It's that Actvision formula, man.

The twitch based combat of CoD + the progression system and magic of WoW = Destiny.

The short-term reward\rush of CoD + the long term hook of WoW = Destiny.

Or to make the math even simpler: Money_machine#1 + Money_machine#2 = ALL the moneys.

They knew what this was from the beginning.

They knew ;)

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I think that is where First Light fits in. If you made Valhalla with a segmented cave system through the center hills of the map, you can have the big open spaces. You just have to provide alternatives. Because anyone who thinks sniper lockin on a coverless open field is good game design, well, I am sure you can guess where that is going.

But I imagine as they start balancing and sorting out objective modes for Destiny we will see more maps to accomodate larger play spaces.

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-Three new Crucible maps:

tight corridors.
focused on close combat.

If there's anything Destiny needs, it's more tight close quarters maps dominated by auto rifles and shotguns.

No, wait, it needs the opposite of that.

I miss large, open outdoor maps. Do those even exist anymore? Those are the reason I played Halo, instead of any other multiplayer FPS game.

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I suspect those sorts of maps are a lot less fun when everyone can spawn with Sniper Rifles :-/

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I suspect those sorts of maps are a lot less fun when everyone can spawn with Sniper Rifles :-/

Good point. Unless you really like sniping...

I feel like a lot of the multiplayer design that I don't like simply comes back to the way they've designed their weapon system. Basically, the possibilities are being limited because they can't control it. This is an excellent example; since we can't control whether someone has a sniper rifle, we will just have to design all of our maps to limit its usefulness. If that's how things are going to be, I'd prefer to go back to weapon spawns.

Though another possibility might be to distinguish ammo types further. If they could control where shotgun versus sniper ammo spawned, instead of just general secondary ammo, it would go a long way towards fixing that particular limitation, which would allow for more flexibility in map design.

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I mean, seriously? The thing reads like "yeah we're modifying the way we tell the story, but I can't say how. Buy the DLC."

I get not wanting to spoil things. I don't want specifics about the new raid either (and, in my opinion, the raid is the only thing they nailed in Destiny) because I want it to be a fun, new, challenging experience.

Apart from that it seems like he's just dodging around the fact that the first expansion is going to be the same 'ol grind, but now the story missions are set up in stages like an exotic bounty. Seems like the only thing they want to not spoil is the fact that the game is the sense of disappointment we're going to feel when we realize the expansion is $20 for three more "missions" in the same environments we've already played to death and an additional raid.

I think I'll wait for reviews.

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Harold Ryan: There's a bunch of shared-world content we've shipped on the disc specifically to limit download sizes for people. Both inside the US and all over the world, how much you download on your local home internet connection can be a problem, and even how much storage space it takes up on your console.

It's amazing how different the approaches are between Bungie and 343i.

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Harold Ryan: There's a bunch of shared-world content we've shipped on the disc specifically to limit download sizes for people. Both inside the US and all over the world, how much you download on your local home internet connection can be a problem, and even how much storage space it takes up on your console.
So we share a lot of assets across all the activities in the game. When people get into areas that aren't unlocked right now, they're seeing pieces we built and shipped ahead of time, but they're by no means the finished experiences or even the finished content.

I really want to call bullshit on this.
If they were more up front about it, and preferably had an engineer tell us, preferably several, then I could believe this. Downloads and disk space are concerns, yes, and I bet they thought about them, but I don't believe they were the main reason this stuff is on the disk.
That doesn't even mean it was already done or almost done or it was a low-brow money grab in some other way, I just have a hard time buying these reasons, so I feel like I'm being lied to, and I really do not appreciate being lied to.
I guess it doesn't matter though, at least not now. It's only a couple story missions, a couple multiplayer maps, a strike, and a raid. I can't even get the other strike, one of the multiplayer maps, or this mysterious new exotic weapon. It's not like they lost a sale with the questionable reasoning, they lost a sale by delivering a meager amount of content and then cutting it down more because I don't play on the console made by the manufacturer that gave them a bunch of advertising and presumably money-- which is totally understandable, but also totally sucks.
As for future sales, Bungie is now even more in the category of companies that need to win me back to get any of my money. (Currently Bungie is the only company in that category except probably McDonald's.)
(Also, wow this is horrible timing for them. I know I'm an edge case, but 343i totally and completely sold me on the Master Chief Collection yesterday, and today Bungie confirmed I won't be buying their first expansion or presumably their second expansion any time soon.)

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I can't even get the other strike, one of the multiplayer maps, or this mysterious new exotic weapon.

Just for clarity, there isn't an exclusive PS map in the expansion, and an Activision representative just reached out to the press to say the exotic weapon isn't exclusive either (Source)

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I can't even get the other strike, one of the multiplayer maps, or this mysterious new exotic weapon.

Just for clarity, there isn't an exclusive PS map in the expansion, and an Activision representative just reached out to the press to say the exotic weapon isn't exclusive either (Source)

hmm, that's a little better console-wise then, but it also means there's even less content they're selling, to me or anyone

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hmm, that's a little better console-wise then, but it also means there's even less content they're selling, to me or anyone

Just out of curiosity, would I be correct in assuming you have a problem with DLC pricing in general than the pricing of this expansion specifically?

I only bring it up because the Mythic Map Pack for example came with 3 maps for $15. This is $20 for three maps, plus a strike, a raid, and three story missions. As far as pricing for regular DLC this seems reasonable, if not a better value. Now if the problem is you think DLC is usually over priced, that's a whole different issue.

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Plus I got the Expansion pass for a measly £17, so this DLC will cost me £8.50.

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hmm, that's a little better console-wise then, but it also means there's even less content they're selling, to me or anyone

Just out of curiosity, would I be correct in assuming you have a problem with DLC pricing in general than the pricing of this expansion specifically?

I only bring it up because the Mythic Map Pack for example came with 3 maps for $15. This is $20 for three maps, plus a strike, a raid, and three story missions. As far as pricing for regular DLC this seems reasonable, if not a better value. Now if the problem is you think DLC is usually over priced, that's a whole different issue.

I'm not really familiar with DLC outside of Halo,* and it's hard to compare it to Destiny, so I wasn't trying to, but maybe I still was comparing it on some level.
The multiplayer maps, as I meant to say, have basically no worth to me. I have no control over what maps I play other than excluding some depending on the playlist I pick, and my control over what I play on them is very limited too. I can't even pick one map or another or even veto a map. I have yet to play on several on-disk maps; having more to randomly possibly doesn't do anything for me.
The strike is kind of nice, but there's only one. It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.
The raid is kind of nice, but again there's only one.
The story missions are kind of nice, but there are only three, which compared to how many there are already is actually less of an increase than one more strike (for Xbox players), and they're now confirmed to use a lot of geometry that was already created, and I think it's a given there won't be any new enemies or any big changes in how the game plays. Now that I think about it this strike (or these strikes) and these story missions probably won't come up for weekly and daily heroics or bounties either.
It doesn't seem worth it because it's not that much stuff, and because I'm getting less than other people for the same price (albeit not a lot less), and because it just doesn't appeal to me that much.
* side note: I'm not even that familiar with buying Halo DLC, I didn't get into Halo 2 until all its DLC was free, I Halo 3's paid DLC via ODST, I was given some of the DLC for Reach and Halo 4 for winning contests or just because, and I eventually got all of Halo 4's DLC through the game of the year edition

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The raid is kind of nice, but again there's only one.

Maybe you're already very familiar with the Vault of Glass, but I don't think you've played it. That's been such a great experience for many of us that a new Raid alone justifies the cost of this expansion.

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It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.

This is some arbitrary nonsense. It certainly can be hard to get excited about one more of something that you don't particular care for in the first place.

It's this type of quantity over quality logic that really bothers me and has lead to a lot of games that have padded out game times because people just want more, not necessarily better.

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It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.

This is some arbitrary nonsense.

It's how I feel. Feelings are known for being arbitrary and nonsensical.

It certainly can be hard to get excited about one more of something that you don't particular care for in the first place.

I like the strikes, but one more doesn't impress me, it doesn't make me want to spend money... maybe if it was like $3. Two strikes would be nicer, but that's not an option, and it would only bump up the price I'm comfortable with by a bit, like to $7 maybe. I haven't played the raid, I'm hoping it impresses me, but I don't think another one would be worth $20 to me, and I'm not sure two more for $35 is much better.
The multiplayer maps I don't particularly care for, that much is true, but we're getting more than one, and I still don't particularly care.

It's this type of quantity over quality logic that really bothers me and has lead to a lot of games that have padded out game times because people just want more, not necessarily better.

I didn't say I value quantity over quality, but that's a nice strawman you built. Seriously, it is, there's a legitimate concern there, but I don't think it applies in this case. I'm definitely also concerned about quality, and with so few strikes even just one more is relatively significant, but then that's part of the problem, isn't it? They sold us four worlds, four (or five) strikes, one raid, and some multiplayer maps that we may or may not even get to play, and now they want to sell us a fraction of a world's worth of story missions that aren't even on a new world, one more strike (two if you're lucky), one more raid, and some more multiplayer maps that we presumably also may or may not get to play.
That's not to say I feel cheated, I don't agree with or even understand the argument that we were lied to about the scope and size of the game, except for the way they talked about Saturn and Mercury, and the one comment about how we could go to every place that's visible from the beginning of the first mission, which always seemed a bit too good to be true to me. OK, so I feel let down and a little mislead there, but the worlds are about as big and mostly as well done as I hoped, I just was looking for there to be more of them, and to have organic boundaries instead of bullshit invisible walls and kill barriers, but that second part seems very rare indeed.

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It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.

This is some arbitrary nonsense.

It's how I feel. Feelings are known for being arbitrary and nonsensical.

It certainly can be hard to get excited about one more of something that you don't particular care for in the first place.

I like the strikes, but one more doesn't impress me, it doesn't make me want to spend money... maybe if it was like $3. Two strikes would be nicer, but that's not an option, and it would only bump up the price I'm comfortable with by a bit, like to $7 maybe. I haven't played the raid, I'm hoping it impresses me, but I don't think another one would be worth $20 to me, and I'm not sure two more for $35 is much better.
The multiplayer maps I don't particularly care for, that much is true, but we're getting more than one, and I still don't particularly care.

It's this type of quantity over quality logic that really bothers me and has lead to a lot of games that have padded out game times because people just want more, not necessarily better.

I didn't say I value quantity over quality, but that's a nice strawman you built. Seriously, it is, there's a legitimate concern there, but I don't think it applies in this case. I'm definitely also concerned about quality, and with so few strikes even just one more is relatively significant, but then that's part of the problem, isn't it? They sold us four worlds, four (or five) strikes, one raid, and some multiplayer maps that we may or may not even get to play, and now they want to sell us a fraction of a world's worth of story missions that aren't even on a new world, one more strike (two if you're lucky), one more raid, and some more multiplayer maps that we presumably also may or may not get to play.
That's not to say I feel cheated, I don't agree with or even understand the argument that we were lied to about the scope and size of the game, except for the way they talked about Saturn and Mercury, and the one comment about how we could go to every place that's visible from the beginning of the first mission, which always seemed a bit too good to be true to me. OK, so I feel let down and a little mislead there, but the worlds are about as big and mostly as well done as I hoped, I just was looking for there to be more of them, and to have organic boundaries instead of bullshit invisible walls and kill barriers, but that second part seems very rare indeed.

Let's talk after you've played a Raid, which is a special experience for many, and may be for you, too. I bet it changes the equation.

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Would pay $19.99 just for another raid of VoG's quality on its own.

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Lets just have a quick look at your post to which you have asserted that I derived a strawman argument from. Where I derived that your evaluation of the DLC is quantitative based instead of qualitative.

I'm not really familiar with DLC outside of Halo,* and it's hard to compare it to Destiny, so I wasn't trying to, but maybe I still was comparing it on some level.
The multiplayer maps, as I meant to say, have basically no worth to me. I have no control over what maps I play other than excluding some depending on the playlist I pick, and my control over what I play on them is very limited too. I can't even pick one map or another or even veto a map. I have yet to play on several on-disk maps; having more to randomly possibly doesn't do anything for me.
The strike is kind of nice, but there's only one. It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.
The raid is kind of nice, but again there's only one.
The story missions are kind of nice, but there are only three, which compared to how many there are already is actually less of an increase than one more strike (for Xbox players), and they're now confirmed to use a lot of geometry that was already created, and I think it's a given there won't be any new enemies or any big changes in how the game plays. Now that I think about it this strike (or these strikes) and these story missions probably won't come up for weekly and daily heroics or bounties either.
It doesn't seem worth it because it's not that much stuff, and because I'm getting less than other people for the same price (albeit not a lot less), and because it just doesn't appeal to me that much.
* side note: I'm not even that familiar with buying Halo DLC, I didn't get into Halo 2 until all its DLC was free, I Halo 3's paid DLC via ODST, I was given some of the DLC for Reach and Halo 4 for winning contests or just because, and I eventually got all of Halo 4's DLC through the game of the year edition

I'm sorry if I misunderstood the post above and incorrectly painted it as an argument strongly about quantity rather than quality. If you indeed have feelings about the DLC's quality which would involve an interesting amount of theory and conjecture rather than judging it by the quantity of the content, then I'm sorry to have strawmanned the hell out of the above post. I would also say, damn, you should work on the clarity of what you're writing, because I'd say the above post was misleading regarding what you actually care about.

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Lets just have a quick look at your post to which you have asserted that I derived a strawman argument from. Where I derived that your evaluation of the DLC is quantitative based instead of qualitative.

I'm not really familiar with DLC outside of Halo,* and it's hard to compare it to Destiny, so I wasn't trying to, but maybe I still was comparing it on some level.
The multiplayer maps, as I meant to say, have basically no worth to me. I have no control over what maps I play other than excluding some depending on the playlist I pick, and my control over what I play on them is very limited too. I can't even pick one map or another or even veto a map. I have yet to play on several on-disk maps; having more to randomly possibly doesn't do anything for me.
The strike is kind of nice, but there's only one. It's just hard to get excited over one more of something.
The raid is kind of nice, but again there's only one.
The story missions are kind of nice, but there are only three, which compared to how many there are already is actually less of an increase than one more strike (for Xbox players), and they're now confirmed to use a lot of geometry that was already created, and I think it's a given there won't be any new enemies or any big changes in how the game plays. Now that I think about it this strike (or these strikes) and these story missions probably won't come up for weekly and daily heroics or bounties either.
It doesn't seem worth it because it's not that much stuff, and because I'm getting less than other people for the same price (albeit not a lot less), and because it just doesn't appeal to me that much.
* side note: I'm not even that familiar with buying Halo DLC, I didn't get into Halo 2 until all its DLC was free, I Halo 3's paid DLC via ODST, I was given some of the DLC for Reach and Halo 4 for winning contests or just because, and I eventually got all of Halo 4's DLC through the game of the year edition

I'm sorry if I misunderstood the post above and incorrectly painted it as an argument strongly about quantity rather than quality. If you indeed have feelings about the DLC's quality which would involve an interesting amount of theory and conjecture rather than judging it by the quantity of the content, then I'm sorry to have strawmanned the hell out of the above post. I would also say, damn, you should work on the clarity of what you're writing, because I'd say the above post was misleading regarding what you actually care about.

Maybe saying it was a strawman was too much, but I do care about quality. I can't prove that to you any more than you can prove I'm more concerned about quantity (because they're both internal to my mind), so I don't know what you're looking for. I will say my posts in this thread certainly imply more care about quantity, but that's because that's the thing I'm pointing out as an issue. I can't judge the quality of it ahead of time anyway-- if I tried, that reasoning would be more suspect than anything I've said above.
Also, resorting to calling fallacies? I know logical fallacies are associated with pale neckbearded autistic nerds, but they're valid concerns and problems that show up with arguments. I try to not bring them up because they're usually serious issues when they do show up and because of those associations, and maybe I should be more careful still, but to say that like it's an insult... I don't know....

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343i totally and completely sold me on the Master Chief Collection yesterday

So. I don't keep up with the MCC. What happened yesterday?

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This.

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What happened yesterday?

http://carnage.bungie.org/haloforum/halo.forum.pl?read=1198954

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Harold Ryan: There's a bunch of shared-world content we've shipped on the disc specifically to limit download sizes for people. Both inside the US and all over the world, how much you download on your local home internet connection can be a problem, and even how much storage space it takes up on your console.

It's amazing how different the approaches are between Bungie and 343i.

Holy-partitioned-hard-drive, batman!

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So you have to replace all your VoG raid armor with the new WoC raid armor if you want to raise above 30?

So pretty much everyone above level 30 is going to be wearing the exact same stuff just with slightly different shaders?

And this also means that all Exotic armor is now worthless?

Is this how an "MMO" is normally done?

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So you have to replace all your VoG raid armor with the new WoC raid armor if you want to raise above 30?

Not very clear, but it's been said that there will be new "gear" added that can raise your light levels, possibly of existing gear.

So pretty much everyone above level 30 is going to be wearing the exact same stuff just with slightly different shaders?

I see a lot of level 30s, and they don't all wear the same gear. A lot of identifiable pieces, but exotics and such help add a little bit of personalization into the mix. If the upcoming gear helps us level up our lesser, non-exotic armors, then maybe we'd get a bigger variety of styles, which would be great...

And this also means that all Exotic armor is now worthless?

See above. Also, how would something be worthless just because it didn't max out your character?

Is this how an "MMO" is normally done?

Yes, actually. Certain armor sets are endgame rewards, to be easily identifiable, and with the highest stats... Not always, though. As always, we come back to something like Monster Hunter, which figured out a much better solution, though that's not an MMO...

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Is this how an "MMO" is normally done?

Yes, actually. Certain armor sets are endgame rewards, to be easily identifiable, and with the highest stats... Not always, though. As always, we come back to something like Monster Hunter, which figured out a much better solution, though that's not an MMO...

And that solution was? I'm curious.

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Is this how an "MMO" is normally done?

Yes, actually. Certain armor sets are endgame rewards, to be easily identifiable, and with the highest stats... Not always, though. As always, we come back to something like Monster Hunter, which figured out a much better solution, though that's not an MMO...

And that solution was? I'm curious.

Armors with inherent stats, but that also had slots that you could apply upgrades to, and the number of slots (and pieces with slots) depended on how difficult it was to craft the armor, so you could theoretically have two very similar high-level armor sets that looked completely different...

One way this could work in Destiny is already being implemented somewhat with the next Iron Banner, where you can essentially re-roll the stats of a reward drop...

Say for example you really like the look of the Firebreak gauntlets, and you don't like how the raid gauntlets look. What if you could fit a certain amount of the stats onto your white-tier armor by buying slots for it? The slots could be expensive, costing coins, motes, or shards, and might even require certain resources (adding a use for all of that plasteel and sapphire wire), and you'd have to sacrifice the raid armor piece(s)... But you could ultimately bump up that Firebreak armor into Legendary tier (or even Exotic?)
Upgrading item tiers is already in the game; when you upgrade a Rare sparrow with one of Xur's drives, it becomes Legendary. Same principle.

They said that they're adding a way to "raise your current light level", when they could have easily just said that the new armor could raise your light to 32. So they may very well add something that can have a non-raid/Iron Banner method of reaching levels beyond 28, which is what the folks have been clamoring for...

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Bungie should totally do this, it sounds like a great way to utilize some of the best looking armor in the game while also stretching out gameplay even further! :P

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Not going to help people who think the content is a bit thin in the main game, but it's much more content than one normally gets in an FPS addon and terrific value when I consider what I've gotten out of the main game so far (5 days and over 24k notches). Less so for Xbox duders unfortunately.

If it meets or exceeds the release game's content in quality it should be a blast. If it feels rushed or phoned in then it will be very sad. I'm not worried about the MP maps as Bungie has always delivered there, same with the strikes and Raid. Story missions could be hit or miss though. I want more story missions like The Array, Eye of the Gatelord, the Archives or the ketch boarding mission. Near on Mini strikes one can solo if needs be.

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A whole strike withheld. Pretty shitty practice, especially with DLC.

By the time it eventually gets released, it will be such a walk in the park for most of us.

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He describes the story telling for the (maybe 3?) new missions as the Thorn exotic quest being "the inspiration for how we're attempting to tell the story in this expansion". My concern is that the Thorn Exotic quest is a great example of what is wrong with story telling in the core game.

You have a series of fetch and achieve tasks to perform which are conveyed to you through text on an abstract "missive", and then you have to rehash a Strike mission with an additional bad guy to kill. There is no real story presented to you, you have to read a bunch of text or Grimoire cards to get context or back story. No characters with personalities. No sense of need or urgency or danger. In fact, there is more story, exposition, and character content in the base game. If they are basing the Dark Below's story on that bounty, it almost seems like they are going to make it less expositional than the base game.

Now, I'm assuming that I'm understanding that incorrectly. It doesn't make sense for Bungie to do this while they talk about improving story presentation. However, when I played the Beta, I assumed that there was little story because it had been removed for the Beta. I gave them the benefit of the doubt and assumed that there would be rich story in the Earth missions in the final game. Basically, it's hard to trust now, I have no idea what to expect :(

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There is no real story presented to you, you have to read a bunch of text or Grimoire cards to get context or back story.

This basically summarizes the entire marathon series :)

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I bought the Durandal remake for 360 a few years back and I still play survival mode a couple times a week. If they offered a remade Infinity for $10, I'd buy.

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I bought the Durandal remake for 360 a few years back and I still play survival mode a couple times a week. If they offered a remade Infinity for $10, I'd buy.

We will probably go down the path of "Was Destiny worth full retail price" if we start talking about willingness to purchase a game that lacks certain common gaming mechanics. In addition, Durandal is a re-release, available through Aleph One, yada yada yada . . .
I think that argument is a bit separate from this.

My main point is that story/narrative is a huge factor for me when I consider purchasing a game nowadays. That's just my interest. If the game Marathon released today I highly doubt that I would consider buying it.

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I bought the Durandal remake for 360 a few years back and I still play survival mode a couple times a week. If they offered a remade Infinity for $10, I'd buy.

We will probably go down the path of "Was Destiny worth full retail price" if we start talking about willingness to purchase a game that lacks certain common gaming mechanics. In addition, Durandal is a re-release, available through Aleph One, yada yada yada . . .

And those walls of text would be a pain on a tv screen.

I think that argument is a bit separate from this.
My main point is that story/narrative is a huge factor for me when I consider purchasing a game nowadays. That's just my interest.

I don't know that Destiny would operate as a story driven game regardless of how well that story was presented, at least past the first play-through. The medium would have to be drastically different, and for whatever reason, Bungie decided not to make another Halo game.

The lack of plot has actually enabled me to put my own story on top of the actions of the game, and that's been a unique experience for me that's allowed me to experience the whole game in a novel way. It's not something I think everyone wants to do either. I imagine the experience is decidedly different for you, and I gather it's a somewhat frustrating experience.

If the game Marathon released today I highly doubt that I would consider buying it.

Ooooo...what if it was for a charity? Damn good idea right there!

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The lack of plot has actually enabled me to put my own story on top of the actions of the game, and that's been a unique experience for me that's allowed me to experience the whole game in a novel way. It's not something I think everyone wants to do either. I imagine the experience is decidedly different for you, and I gather it's a somewhat frustrating experience.

Yeah, that's just not something I'm into with games. What currently excites about gaming is the potential for deeply immersive environments through graphical fidelity, detailed settings, and rich characters and story. I love the idea of being guided through a heroic story where I play the pivotal role and thus, feel that I am a special character within this sprawling new world and group of characters.
Destiny does very well on a lot of these. But for instance, Mass Effect does each one of them excellently (in my opinion). So right now, it's a tough call for me to put more money into a game like this when I could be trying out something else that may provide all the elements that I want.

If the game Marathon released today I highly doubt that I would consider buying it.

Ooooo...what if it was for a charity? Damn good idea right there!

Hhm, yeah in that case I would probably go for it. The charity is a plus and not having to make sure everything is set to use Aleph One is another plus :D

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Destiny does very well on a lot of these. But for instance, Mass Effect does each one of them excellently (in my opinion). So right now, it's a tough call for me to put more money into a game like this when I could be trying out something else that may provide all the elements that I want.

On the bright side, Destiny does offer some sparkling combat mechanics that lend themselves to thoroughly enjoyable fps encounters. And when that's strong enough, you don't really need new environments from a DLC to enjoy when you ultimately get plenty of that from the initial offering. Save that DLC money for the next immersive sci-fi shooter, I don't think it'll hurt your enjoyment of the initial Destiny offering.

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I bought the Durandal remake for 360 a few years back and I still play survival mode a couple times a week. If they offered a remade Infinity for $10, I'd buy.

No need. trilogyrelease.bungie.org + Aleph One.

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I bought the Durandal remake for 360 a few years back and I still play survival mode a couple times a week. If they offered a remade Infinity for $10, I'd buy.

No need. trilogyrelease.bungie.org + Aleph One.

I have the aleph remake as well, but being able to play marathon over live and the survival mode were enough to make me bite. The splitscreen multiplayer was also a nice change of pace for quick mayhem with friends on the couch, rather than trying to LAN up when at the time all of us didn't have computers. Had a very n64 feel, I actually think it was one of the better purchases of my life post-drinking age.

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I've played through the M2 campaign countless times back in the day, but unfortunately, the 360 version makes me queasy.

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I've played through the M2 campaign countless times back in the day, but unfortunately, the 360 version makes me queasy.

Queasy like, "man, why would I buy this?" or queasy like, "man I SWORE I would never eat movie-theater cheese nachos, ever again"?

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I've played through the M2 campaign countless times back in the day, but unfortunately, the 360 version makes me queasy.

Queasy like, "man, why would I buy this?" or queasy like, "man I SWORE I would never eat movie-theater cheese nachos, ever again"?

The latter. It's a known issue. They even patched it in an attempt to fix it.

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I've played through the M2 campaign countless times back in the day, but unfortunately, the 360 version makes me queasy.

Queasy like, "man, why would I buy this?" or queasy like, "man I SWORE I would never eat movie-theater cheese nachos, ever again"?

The latter. It's a known issue. They even patched it in an attempt to fix it.

[image]

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My heart sank when I read this. I feel like he's talking about story as gameplay. I've avoided the Thorn bounty because of the grind it forces. I'm hoping I'm just misunderstanding him.

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When I first got the Thorn bounty, I had two reactions as I progressed through it.

#1) This bounty is a terrible fetch quest, and is making me do things I don't enjoy in the game to complete it.

#2) Holy shit, this bounty has a story attached to it, and even though it's text based, I want to know more! Where was this stuff in the main game??

^^It got even better when I unlocked all the Thorn cards- there's a cool back story to the gun and it's user, but I don't want to spoil it. But that coolness ran dry pretty fast because I could only experience it through the website, and it reminded me of how lacking the rest of the game's narrative is.

Shame!

If they DO make more things LIKE the Thorn bounty, but IMPLEMENT it differently, I think it could go over very well, or how it should have been done from the start.

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I think I'm with you. My experience with the Exotic bounties has been like, you want me to do what?!

Destiny is great with naming, textual content, and evocative tidbits (like what you overhear in the Tower). I'm fine with evocative, but many times it seems a bit too much of the iceberg is hidden under the waves. Here's hoping that Eris has a real personality and gives us reasons to care.

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I think I'm with you. My experience with the Exotic bounties has been like, you want me to do what?!

Yeah, they can still be fun, albeit a bit grindy. The Super Good Advice bounty was actually kind of fun when I had to get so many kills using only machine guns. It forced me to use my Swarm on everything and I started trying to get headshots with it, something I never would have done ( because it isn't worth the price of the ammo consumables :P ) if I had not had a reason. And it was honestly really cool to have those weird items in my inventory.

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I think I'm with you. My experience with the Exotic bounties has been like, you want me to do what?!

Yeah, they can still be fun, albeit a bit grindy. The Super Good Advice bounty was actually kind of fun when I had to get so many kills using only machine guns. It forced me to use my Swarm on everything and I started trying to get headshots with it, something I never would have done ( because it isn't worth the price of the ammo consumables :P ) if I had not had a reason. And it was honestly really cool to have those weird items in my inventory.

Super Good Advice is definitely the easiest, and in my opinion the most fun of the exotic bounties. It was the first one I did, so I was disappointed when I got the one for Bad Juju where you have to do 25 strikes.

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I just got the Super Good Advice bounty for the 2nd time. I liked it a lot the first time around, too.

I did Bad JuJu and I was OK with doing the strikes, but the gun itself was quite the letdown. Only 7 burts and then a long reload--some of my blue ARs were putting out more DPS.

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I just got the Super Good Advice bounty for the 2nd time. I liked it a lot the first time around, too.

I did Bad JuJu and I was OK with doing the strikes, but the gun itself was quite the letdown. Only 7 burts and then a long reload--some of my blue ARs were putting out more DPS.

It's not a great gun for big bads, but for small guys it's amazing fulling upgraded. Just switch to fusion rifle when you come across big bads and it's a great patrol or story mission weapon.

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-Playstation exclusive strike "The Undying Mind", set in the Black Garden, with an exclusive Exotic item as well.

I'm not one usually to complain about business practices like these because I generally feel like an informed consumer who can decide not to buy something if I don't like it. When the launch exclusives were announced for Destiny, I, as a soon-to-be XB1 owner, was understandably a bit disappointed but felt I was being treated fairly because I was being informed ahead of time and could cancel my pre-order if I desired.

With this announcement, it's a very different case in that I have already purchased the Destiny expansion pass based on the description and advertising offered to both playstation and xbox owners. Informing me now that I will be excluded from some content leaves me no recourse.

Some might argue that the advertising was for the base content, but if true, that would be very unfair. It's akin to two neighbors who each see an advertisement for a new model car and decide to buy it only to have one neighbor informed after purchase that his car would arrive without any passenger seats or air conditioning. Maybe a practice like that is legally defensible, but is it right?

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Doesn't timed exclusive mean it eventually will release for other consoles? I'm actually okay with delaying some of those features if it extends the life of my playing time. Getting some strikes later on would help bridge the gap to later expansions.

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Doesn't timed exclusive mean it eventually will release for other consoles? I'm actually okay with delaying some of those features if it extends the life of my playing time. Getting some strikes later on would help bridge the gap to later expansions.

The exclusives may be timed, but no one in the interview mentions it. Either way, I don't think it changes the issue. I have already purchased the product based on the same advertising given to playstation owners, and yet we are intentionally being given different products and are only being informed now.

As for timing, I really like Destiny, but I know many others who are just waiting for the next game. I worry that they will have migrated away before the exclusives become available to us, and the experience will be much less social and enjoyable.

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Some might argue that the advertising was for the base content, but if true, that would be very unfair. It's akin to two neighbors who each see an advertisement for a new model car and decide to buy it only to have one neighbor informed after purchase that his car would arrive without any passenger seats or air conditioning. Maybe a practice like that is legally defensible, but is it right?

I think it's more like you both buy a car, but your neighbor gets extra cup holders and a spoiler on it. You didn't know what would be included when you bought the car, so when you get it, knowing nothing about your neighbors car, nothing's missing. Everything looks fine. But then you see his car and you want what he has, but the company tells you that the cup holder and spoiler are on back order, but you'll get them later...

As far as we were concerned, we were getting one strike, no?

An extra strike is just a bonus feature that's not vital to the product working as one would expect.

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An extra strike is just a bonus feature that's not vital to the product working as one would expect.

Xbox is missing a strike from launch, and now this srtike. If they follow suit on the next DLC, it will be 3 missing strikes. All for the same amount of $$.

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An extra strike is just a bonus feature that's not vital to the product working as one would expect.

Passenger seats and air conditioning aren't vital either -- that was my point. =)

I think the general expectation of consumers is that they should get the same product for the same advertising (barring some unforeseen circumstance or mistake, which this is not).

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An extra strike is just a bonus feature that's not vital to the product working as one would expect.

Passenger seats and air conditioning aren't vital either -- that was my point. =)

I think the general expectation of consumers is that they should get the same product for the same advertising (barring some unforeseen circumstance or mistake, which this is not).

They advertised one strike. You should expect what's advertised. If someone else gets something more, and that bothers you, you're letting jealousy get the better of you.

I'm an XBox One owner, and I'm definitely not excited about playing the strikes after PS players, but I feel like where the ball has been dropped is not advertising and that it's a dumb way to think about it.

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They advertised one strike. You should expect what's advertised. If someone else gets something more, and that bothers you, you're letting jealousy get the better of you.

Where? I still don't see it. But I agree with you that I should expect to get what's advertised. The problem comes when the advertising is not especially clear.

Most of this is moot at this point as Harmanimus showed that at least some were informed that the DLCs would continue to contain timed playstation exclusives.

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They advertised one strike. You should expect what's advertised. If someone else gets something more, and that bothers you, you're letting jealousy get the better of you.

Where? I still don't see it. But I agree with you that I should expect to get what's advertised. The problem comes when the advertising is not especially clear.

Most of this is moot at this point as Harmanimus showed that at least some were informed that the DLCs would continue to contain timed playstation exclusives.

Here, though "New Strike" isn't hyper specific about how many. And yeah they haven't exactly been beating the drum regarding exclusive content.

Anyways I appreciate you having a reasonable conversation about this. I regret saying "stupid" and I'm sorry about that.

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Here, though "New Strike" isn't hyper specific about how many. And yeah they haven't exactly been beating the drum regarding exclusive content.

I believe those are the new details offered just this week, long after my purchase of the expansion pass back when it seemed (to me) that all users were being offered the same product.

Anyways I appreciate you having a reasonable conversation about this. I regret saying "stupid" and I'm sorry about that.

Thanks. No problem.

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I am currently in an airport, so can't easily hunt a source, but I recall there being mention before the game released that the expansions (in reference to the season pass) would include PS exclusive content. I remember that contributing to my purchase decision.

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I am currently in an airport, so can't easily hunt a source, but I recall there being mention before the game released that the expansions (in reference to the season pass) would include PS exclusive content. I remember that contributing to my purchase decision.

I'd certainly be interested in seeing that if you get a chance to look for it.

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It was easier to find than I thought. Article from the middle of summer:

http://www.gamezone.com/news/destiny-expansion-pass-aka-season-pass-detailed

And important text:

"Interestingly, PlayStation platforms will also include additional exclusive content for both expansions (in addition to the already revealed PlayStation bonus content). All extra content will remain exclusive on PlayStation until "at least" fall 2015, said Bungie."

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"Interestingly, PlayStation platforms will also include additional exclusive content for both expansions (in addition to the already revealed PlayStation bonus content). All extra content will remain exclusive on PlayStation until "at least" fall 2015, said Bungie."

Be interesting to see if they stick with that date. Sony must have dropped some serious coin to nail those down, I wonder how Microsoft feels about it.

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Thanks! I take back most of my complaint, but I do wish the exclusivity had been communicated more effectively. I was reading just about all I could about the game back when that article came out, and I never saw that information. Even now, the official Destiny expansion pass page makes no mention of platform-exclusive content.

I'm now curious if all timed exclusives will expire in fall 2015 or if each exclusive release will have a one-year timer...

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I'm now curious if all timed exclusives will expire in fall 2015 or if each exclusive release will have a one-year timer...

I'm hoping it all expires at the same time. That would make all the content feel like a mini-expansion for Xbox users when it's released instead of random single strikes I'll forget about more easily.

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I'm now curious if all timed exclusives will expire in fall 2015 or if each exclusive release will have a one-year timer...

I'm hoping it all expires at the same time. That would make all the content feel like a mini-expansion for Xbox users when it's released instead of random single strikes I'll forget about more easily.

I'm hoping that's the expiration date for the current deal between Activision and Sony and that at that point Microsoft and Sony can fight over the timed exclusives for Destiny 2.

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At that point I hope BUNGIE says "we don't want half our fans pissed at us" and just give everyone the same conent at the same time.

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No, they'll say that and then do something that makes half their fanbase pissed at them.

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I dont have a source, but Im positive I remember them mentiOning before that the first Expansion would also have Playatation-exclusive content. Maybe even the first two.

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I have to ask the same question I did of GV, once again out of curiosity:

"Would I be correct in assuming you have a problem with DLC pricing in general than the pricing of this expansion specifically?

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Really, the issue is with game pricing in general. Dark Souls 2 had three DLC for 9.99 each, with unique areas and gameplay that greatly improved the flawed base game. The season pass for the three was only 24.99

Destiny is a game that already has a significant lack of content, and is charging 20 dollars for what will end up being less than 5 hours of gameplay. And it's coming out a month after the MCC, which has what... 96 maps and four campaigns and two remastered campaigns and multiplayer? All for 60?

Some DLC is great and adds a lot. World of Warcraft's expansions for instance, you'd be hard pressed to find a player that didn't find it worth the purchase. With this, though, it seems like it's not enough to make up for the lack of what is already in the game. It'll ultimately end up feeling like it fills in the gaps instead of being an addition.

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Destiny is a game that already has a significant lack of content, and is charging 20 dollars for what will end up being less than 5 hours of gameplay. And it's coming out a month after the MCC, which has what... 96 maps and four campaigns and two remastered campaigns and multiplayer? All for 60?

The MCC is a great deal, but it's been 13 years in the making, and the hardest parts of that content was done long before any work began on this repackaging. In other words, it's not something out of nothing.

Destiny, on the other hand, is not quite like anything else, although it certainly leverages some things Bungie has done before. I'm disappointed in some aspects, sure, but I'm willing to give it time to get its bearings and figure out how to fly.

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Destiny is a game that already has a significant lack of content, and is charging 20 dollars for what will end up being less than 5 hours of gameplay. And it's coming out a month after the MCC, which has what... 96 maps and four campaigns and two remastered campaigns and multiplayer? All for 60?

The MCC is a great deal, but it's been 13 years in the making, and the hardest parts of that content was done long before any work began on this repackaging. In other words, it's not something out of nothing.

Destiny, on the other hand, is not quite like anything else,

It mostly is, though; it's not exactly like anything else, but nothing is exactly like anything else. It's a good-to-great shooter with magic-like abilities and MMO-style investment and grind shoved in. Regardless, whether it's a fair comparison or not, the MCC is their competition, and for at least a few people, they are (massively) losing the competition.

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Destiny is a game that already has a significant lack of content, and is charging 20 dollars for what will end up being less than 5 hours of gameplay. And it's coming out a month after the MCC, which has what... 96 maps and four campaigns and two remastered campaigns and multiplayer? All for 60?

The MCC is a great deal, but it's been 13 years in the making, and the hardest parts of that content was done long before any work began on this repackaging. In other words, it's not something out of nothing.

Destiny, on the other hand, is not quite like anything else,

It mostly is, though; it's not exactly like anything else, but nothing is exactly like anything else. It's a good-to-great shooter with magic-like abilities and MMO-style investment and grind shoved in. Regardless, whether it's a fair comparison or not, the MCC is their competition, and for at least a few people, they are (massively) losing the competition.

Sure. I'll grant that MCC looks much more attractive to many. I'm excited about it myself. MCC is special and a great value even though I've already spent hundreds of dollars to own most of that content. I'm paying to future-proof content that means a lot to me. (Wish Reach and ODST would get the same treatment.)

Halo's already made mountains of money, though, and Microsoft could afford to burnish the MCC as a system seller (and probably a Halo 5 seller). It's a fantastic way to leverage the value of assets that have already been developed and have proven appeal.

You could compare the amount of content in any new $60 game and its DLC to the MCC and it would come up short. The point of my post got edited out, which is that Destiny has enough appeal at this early date that the expansions are worth it to me to see where they go next, and that's without the nostalgia factor that is a big part of my motivation to buy the MCC.

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GTA 5: 20 times larger map? 50 times? 1,000,000 times more story and plot? ∞ times better voice acting?

Skyrim: 100+ hours of voice acted, non-repetitive story missions, PLUS a map that takes literal hours to walk across.

Assassin's Creed 4: Massive open map, more than 60 hours of only semi-repetitive voiced story missions and gameplay.

These are games that are more than worth the price of admission. But to be fair, there are other games that don't match this at all:

Titanfall: Literally zero story. Great gameplay. Each map is roughly akin to a destiny area in size.

I'm sure there are others.

But the fact is that Destiny was billed as a massive, open world(s) to explore, with quotes like "if you see mountains in the distance, you can go there" which are just patently false. Am I having fun playing it? Sure. But the game was sold to me as HUGE and EXPANSIVE but it's really not.

Graphics: Amazing
Sound: Incredible
Gameplay: Fun
Story: Basically none.
Mission Design: Terrible and repetitive. Mission 2 features you literally walking back through part of the end of mission 1. So dumb.
Voice Acting: Generally good acting completely overshadowed by how god-awful Peter Dinklage is as the primary signposter. Stunt casting at its worst.
Size and Scope: Far less than advertised, and made to seem even smaller because so many of the missions in the game are all the same. Why are the weekly nightfall and weekly heroic strikes always the same strikes? That just forces us to play the same mission over again, which is boring as hell. It's like game design 101 to mix these things up. Why is so much of the game text-based instead of voiced? How come there's zero backstory and zero in-game plot to motivate your actions? There's clearly been loads of stuff written by Bungie about the game world and its mythos, as evidenced in the grimoire cards, so why is ZERO of that in the actual game?

Instead of being the game I was planning on playing for the next 10 years, Destiny has turned into the game I plan on scrapping as soon as the next moderately interesting game comes out. For me, that'll probably be The Division.

As for the xpac, you're getting your $20 worth if you believed that the $15 per xpac you paid for CoD was worth it. Think of it like this: If you could buy two movie tickets for $20, you'd get about 4 hours of movie out of that. So if you get 4 hours of gameplay from it, you're even.

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More voice acted story. That's what I want more of too. You have many valid criticisms, which I hope are addressed. I've played two of the games you mentioned, and although I enjoyed and admired them, I didn't have as much fun with them as I have had with Destiny. As far as the expansion packs go to the Raids are worth the cost to me.

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Think of it like this: If you could buy two movie tickets for $20, you'd get about 4 hours of movie out of that. So if you get 4 hours of gameplay from it, you're even.

If you want hours of 'entertainment' for a low price, I'm pretty sure reality TV takes the prize every time.

Doesn't mean it's any good.

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Think of it like this: If you could buy two movie tickets for $20, you'd get about 4 hours of movie out of that. So if you get 4 hours of gameplay from it, you're even.

Yes because all experiences are the same, and a ten second orgasm is worth the same as ten seconds of playing Halo.

Playtime is not a valuable way to assess game quality.
Playtime for money is an even WORSE way to assess game quality.

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Think of it like this: If you could buy two movie tickets for $20, you'd get about 4 hours of movie out of that. So if you get 4 hours of gameplay from it, you're even.

Yes because all experiences are the same, and a ten second orgasm is worth the same as ten seconds of playing Halo.

Playtime is not a valuable way to assess game quality.
Playtime for money is an even WORSE way to assess game quality.

TLOU: Left Behind was $20 and was about two hours long, if that.
Minerva's Den was $10, and was about five or six hours long...

Both gave me what I wanted for my money's worth, and I won't complain that LB gave me far less time than MD...

What he was saying was not that "if it's 4 hours long, you can't complain about paying $20". What he meant was that people will happily pay $20 for a two-hour movie that they might not even like, but for some reason, they go crazy with paying as much for small DLC, despite the fact that you theoretically would get the same amount of time with it on your first playthrough, knowing that it won't be ALL you get out of it, unlike a movie ticket, and if you're paying for DLC, then obviously you enjoy the game enough to shell out money for it. And you'll have more content to spend time with friends on...

Then again, I'm one of the folks who'll pay $60 for a Treyarch Call of Duty with the Campaign story as my biggest draw, and I'll still buy the Season pass, because the multiplayer is balanced and fun to play with others even if it's not my style, and the Zombie's mode is fun for some mindless shooting.

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I have to take issue with the assertion that Skyrim's missions are not repetitive. While there is a lot of unique story, a lot of it also ends up translating into fetch quests to fairly similar dungeons. "Want to be a powerful vampire? Go to this dungeon and bring me the item inside." "Want to study music and poetry at the Bard's College? Go to this dungeon and bring me the item inside." ..wat.... Being a bard is...killing more draugr in more dungeons? Really??

But I'll definitely concede that it's more varied than Destiny, and one of the reasons I went back to playing Skyrim again, is specifically the misrepresentation of the expansiveness of Destiny. They really did more or less say 'If you can see it, you can go there.' A promise that was broken within my first 10 seconds in the Cosmodrome. Maybe they were actually playing an Elder Scrolls game in that part of the interview....

GTA 5: 20 times larger map? 50 times? 1,000,000 times more story and plot? ∞ times better voice acting?

Skyrim: 100+ hours of voice acted, non-repetitive story missions, PLUS a map that takes literal hours to walk across.

Assassin's Creed 4: Massive open map, more than 60 hours of only semi-repetitive voiced story missions and gameplay.

These are games that are more than worth the price of admission. But to be fair, there are other games that don't match this at all:

Titanfall: Literally zero story. Great gameplay. Each map is roughly akin to a destiny area in size.

I'm sure there are others.

But the fact is that Destiny was billed as a massive, open world(s) to explore, with quotes like "if you see mountains in the distance, you can go there" which are just patently false. Am I having fun playing it? Sure. But the game was sold to me as HUGE and EXPANSIVE but it's really not.

Graphics: Amazing
Sound: Incredible
Gameplay: Fun
Story: Basically none.
Mission Design: Terrible and repetitive. Mission 2 features you literally walking back through part of the end of mission 1. So dumb.
Voice Acting: Generally good acting completely overshadowed by how god-awful Peter Dinklage is as the primary signposter. Stunt casting at its worst.
Size and Scope: Far less than advertised, and made to seem even smaller because so many of the missions in the game are all the same. Why are the weekly nightfall and weekly heroic strikes always the same strikes? That just forces us to play the same mission over again, which is boring as hell. It's like game design 101 to mix these things up. Why is so much of the game text-based instead of voiced? How come there's zero backstory and zero in-game plot to motivate your actions? There's clearly been loads of stuff written by Bungie about the game world and its mythos, as evidenced in the grimoire cards, so why is ZERO of that in the actual game?

Instead of being the game I was planning on playing for the next 10 years, Destiny has turned into the game I plan on scrapping as soon as the next moderately interesting game comes out. For me, that'll probably be The Division.

As for the xpac, you're getting your $20 worth if you believed that the $15 per xpac you paid for CoD was worth it. Think of it like this: If you could buy two movie tickets for $20, you'd get about 4 hours of movie out of that. So if you get 4 hours of gameplay from it, you're even.

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Ok, so, to YOU it's not worth $20.

That's fine.

To someone else who ends up really liking it, is it worth $20?

If they love it is it worth more than $20?

What are you assigning value to? the content, the time spent making it, the time spent playing it, or something else?

Worth and value are unique to the individual.

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IMO, it's the single most difficult/frustrating of the exotic bounties. Part of it requires you to get kills in the Crucible using Void damage, but every death slowly eats away at your progress (void or otherwise).

And the level 26 strike you have to complete (with the Epic modifier) is no picnic either.

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The plot of the thorn quest was interesting, but it's delivered entirely in 100% skippable text bubbles (in the form of bounties). It simply doesn't draw you in nearly as much as voiceover or, perish the thought, animations, would have. And then it's crazy hard compared to the other bounties. The void damage kills portion is one of the only exotic bounty portions that requires you to be good in order to make progress. If you're a serial 0.5 K/D guy, then you're never going to get Thorn. Part of me likes that, and part of me thinks it's a dick move. Players should be warned in advance if they're going to accept a bounty that is skill based.

That being said, it only took me about 4 hours of crucible to complete, but I think I'm pretty good at the PvP in this game.

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Yeah I abandoned the Thorn bounty after a few hours attempting the Crucible portion. After repeatedly having my progress completely reset on a bad death-streak, it just wasnt worth it. Especially considering I have the Devil You Know and Lord High Fixer, both of which are generally considered better.

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-"Crota's End" raid will not be available at launch, much like the Vault of Glass.

Pardon my french, but why the FUCK NOT? It's a level 28 / 32 activity, and there's tons and tons of folks already at 28 or higher. I understand the Vault not being open because it took a week to get to 26, but this is ridiculous.

The pack appears extremely weak. The raid is the one thing that is going to be worth it. Why should I not just wait until the raid opens up to buy the pack? Why would you launch your expansion without the best part of it?

Oh wait, I know the answer.

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Because the raid is tied to the story content + the strike? And people should do that before going straight to the raid?

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Because the raid is tied to the story content + the strike? And people should do that before going straight to the raid?

That would be a huge change of pace :-p

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It would make sense though. The vault of glass is barely mentioned in the main story. Meanwhile Crota is everywhere in the hive missions, the backstory from the grimoire, and ambient conversation on the tower.

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Just read the descriptions for the new maps and realized that Pantheon is listed symmetric. Is this the first symmetric map? The only one close I can think of is The Anomaly, but even that is only roughly symmetrical (the outside parts are very different as far as I can tell). I'm very curious to see how symmetrical Pantheon is. Are we talking exactly the same, or only roughly the same? Also, the Black Garden seems like a gorgeous place to have a multiplayer map.

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Just read the descriptions for the new maps and realized that Pantheon is listed symmetric. Is this the first symmetric map? The only one close I can think of is The Anomaly, but even that is only roughly symmetrical (the outside parts are very different as far as I can tell). I'm very curious to see how symmetrical Pantheon is. Are we talking exactly the same, or only roughly the same?

good questions

Also, the Black Garden seems like a gorgeous place to have a multiplayer map.

If it's outside, yeah. It doesn't seem to make a lot of story sense though, unless it's supposed to be after a long while. We only just found and got into the Black Garden, it's hard to think it would be safe or well-understood already, which seem to be criteria for Crucible arenas.

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If it's outside, yeah. It doesn't seem to make a lot of story sense though, unless it's supposed to be after a long while. We only just found and got into the Black Garden, it's hard to think it would be safe or well-understood already, which seem to be criteria for Crucible arenas.

Well to be fair, Firebase Delphi is right next to, if not in, the Exclusion Zone. They even have Cabal dropships pass over it every few minutes.

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